The Way Things Went For Us
by Mrs.Pryde
Summary: Reenee Tyrid was a doctor at the hospital Rick woke up in, this is the story of how she trapped the zombies in the "Don't open, dead inside" room, escaped the hospital, and survived until she found and joined Rick's group. Daryl has appeared in Chapter 4! New chapter tomorrow! Thanks for reading, reviews appreciated! DarylxOC Daryl/OC
1. Chapter 1

DAY ONE:

When it all started, I was working. Of course I was working, I was always working, even before the news filled up with reports of the madness this disease brought to the streets, I was working 12 hours shifts, 5 days a week. When I wasn't working I was sleeping. I am a doctor. I refuse to say I "was" a doctor. I didn't waste half my life in school to suddenly stop being a doctor when the shit hit the fan.

Anyways, I digress... I was in the ER, dealing with the flood of people who were scared that they had whatever this new disease was, and soon enough more and more people were flooding in with bite marks and scratches and we treated them the best we could... the only thing that seemed to save anyone was amputation, but we couldn't amputate the arms and legs of every single person coming in with a small bite or scratch, we couldn't tell the difference to know if it was the right thing to do...even if we could no one wanted to lose a limb for something so small, no one realized that it was the only thing that would actually save their life...and the lives of however many people they would be killing a few hours later...

My shift that night wasn't even my shift but the hospital was overrun. I knew the virus was contagious and definitely causing the deadly manic episodes of crazed people screaming and running through the streets, killing people they had loved without a second thought, but I also knew that this was what I had signed up for when I had become a doctor. When the hospital called me in on my first night off in 5 days, I only asked that there be fresh coffee in the break room. I was supposed to be working 3-11pm. It was pretty busy when I got there but no busier than a Friday night usually was after the appearance of a new virus such as H1N1, or whatever this was. The vast majority of the people in the ER would be people with colds, just worried out of their minds that they had something worse.

By 5 PM the ER was crowded out the door, there are (or were, I suppose) at least 70 chairs in the large waiting room and every one of them was taken by someone groaning in pain or coughing their lungs out. We know now that the coughing had nothing to do with the virus.

We tried to take people in order of importance. By which I mean, take someone who is bleeding from a gaping bite wound on their neck before taking someone with a bad cough but by 5:30, half of the people in the ER were bleeding all over the place and by 5:45 we were forced to close our doors. We couldn't even handle the people who were already in the emergency room, much less any more.

The army? Coast Guards? I still don't know, they never spoke to us...Some people in military camoflauge uniform came in and shot nearly everyone in the ER after someone reported the first patient who died and then...came back to life. I don't like to put it this way because they didn't come back to life. They were still dead. He was hooked up to a heart rate monitor when he got back up and he was still god damn dead. I don't even remember his name. I was working on him, I was bandaging him, I was there trying to resuscitate him but no, I never stopped to check his name. I have no idea who he was but after he flatlined and before we could unhook him from the machine, he got back up and bit the nurse nearest to him. By the time the men in uniform got there, that one man had bitten and killed at least ten other people.

We saw over 20 more of our patients turned into those insane humanoid things running through our halls before we ran into the stair well, the stair well is key card only and I watched those things slam up against the small glass window until the military men shot most of them. It was clear that the sound of their guns attracted them, the infected creatures rushed the military men and...ate several of them but the military fought back for a while before they were overwhelmed.

By the time the surviving military members fled the building, it was unclear how many infected creatures were still out there. Even if we were pretty sure the military had reclosed the entrance doors to the hospital on their way out. We could hear their helicopter taking off. I didn't cry until I heard that helicopter leaving.

The fact that we had locked the hospital's doors right before the streets became cemeteries was nothing more than a fluke, a stroke of luck, if you can even call it that. We had successfully locked ourselves in a building with roughly 80 dying people who were about to turn into the things rampaging outside and at least 50 who had already turned, but we had also locked ourselves out of the reach of the ones outside.

By 8 PM the screams coming from the bottom floor of the hospital were indistinguishable from the screams coming from the streets outside.

I and 2 other doctors, 4 nurses, and 5 nursing assistants had gone up the stair well and blocked off the entire top floor of the hospital. We counted out our supplies and it was clear to see we didn't have enough to last all 12 of us more than a week comfortably. We could "survive" for maybe 3 weeks but "surviving" would be all of us starving and dehydrated, slowly waiting to die.

We understood that we would have to go downstairs. If we could get to the break room we should be okay, it was accessible only by the slide of an access card carried by hospital staff. Inside the room were two snack machines and a soda machine, as well as the fridge not that it would have much in it. Those vending machines could expand our life expectancy to 2 months though if we rationed it. The amount of water in the vending machine alone would keep us alive for that long.

By 11 PM we had decided that we would go down in the morning. The top floor of the hospital was empty. It was full of hospital beds but no patients. It was the maternity ward. We hadn't had a birth in days, mothers were too scared to leave their homes the past few days and this was lucky for us. The last thing we needed was a screaming baby attracting those things to us.

That night we crowded 12 hospital beds into the largest room and tried to sleep together. Not a single one of us did.

When the light peeking in through the blinds of the hospital window finally began to creep onto my face I decided it was time to go. My phone had 20% battery remaining and it could tell me the time but it hadn't had any service since 9 PM last night. I hadn't even thought about the possibility of the service going out until it was too late to call anyone. I didn't have anyone to call anyways. Both of my parents were dead. I had no siblings or extended family that I truly cared about. I had no boyfriend and very few friends. The police? The military had already been here and had fled, so the police were pointless.

I felt bad for the others in the room with me though. Most of them had families and like me hadn't thought about the possibility of having no way to contact them until it was too late. Marina, a 20 year old CNA had spent most of the night crying. I didn't know much about her but I knew she had a young daughter. In the early hours of the morning she whispered to me that she was in day care. Marina was supposed to have gone to pick her up at 6. I didn't know what to tell her.

I rolled out of the bed and powered off my phone. All hospital personnel are required to wear a watch and since my phone now has no power, there is no point to it. I put it back in my pocket though. On the off chance service comes back I'll want to have it and I'll want it to have that 20%.

I quietly head over to the nurse's station where I know there will be a coffee maker even though there shouldn't be. It still works thanks to the generators and I make coffee for all of us, knowing the small comfort of something familiar alone will do us some good. I take one of the small plastic cups and fill it with my own coffee. Most of the rest of our group are still lying in the hospital beds, though none of them are sleeping. Marina has come out to join me and I pour her a cup before we go together to the bathroom. When we come back out, most of the group is now crowded around the coffee maker, pouring their own cups and so I take mine to an empty room and take a deep breath before peering through the blinds.

Bodies.

There are bodies everywhere.

Blood paints the sides of buildings, some splatters reach up to what must be 20 feet. There are about fifteen of those...zombies...(what else could I call them?) ambling around down there. I can't hear them for how high up the floor is but I don't need to, I know what the ones downstairs sound like and I have been hearing it in my head all night. I can't help but wonder what makes the difference. Why are some people dying and getting back up when there are clearly tons of people who are not? I can only see so far down the street from the window's angle and I feel certain that there are plenty more creatures roaming around but at the moment it appears there are more dead bodies lining the streets than...dead...walking ones. I wonder if maybe some of the ones down stairs have died, or if maybe the military went everywhere killing as many as they could before they abandoned the city completely.

I feel like crying again but I don't. I head back to the nurse's station and take in the others' ongoing conversation.

"Well, it's not like we can just walk right in there and grab what we want or none of us would be up here!" Mario is saying. I only know his name because of his name tag. He's another nursing assistant and one I'm unfamiliar with but he's clearly hot headed. I try not to be too judgemental because the situation is stressful for all of us. It's hard to call anyone hot headed under the circumstances.

"That's not what I'm trying to say, Mario. I just think that we have a decent shot of going back down to the floor and sneaking into the break room." Rebecca says calmly, but I can tell she's getting irritated with him. She's a doctor as well, one I've worked with often and one of the few people I can call a friend, she's smart and rational and I smile warmly at her when she notices me.

"Then what will we do? Huh? Where does your big plan go from there? I don't know if you've noticed but there's no window in the break room door. We have no way of knowing if more of those things are in there and if we get in we have no way of knowing when they are right outside the door. We will be walking into a certain death trap!" He shouts and bangs his coffee cup down on the counter, spilling it onto his hand. He yelps at the heat of the coffee.

"Shut the _fuck _up!" I hiss at him, the entire group jerks their heads to look at me. "Those things can hear us and just because they haven't found a way up here yet doesn't mean that they never will. Be have to get into that room one way or another, you've made some very good points about the window, okay? All of these little factors are important but I think I have a plan... They're attracted to noise. This is a fact. The second those army men shot one bullet, those things flooded to them and even though they could see us in the window of the stairwell, they didn't come for us. I'm not sure if this means that they're blind, but I'm not exactly willing to bet on it, you know what I mean? But I'm positive they can hear us..."

I took a deep breath. I had no idea how to say what I needed to say. I avoid contact with any of them and continue, "I think one of us should run around down there making as much noise as possible to lead them into a room and trap them there."

Marina gasps, Rebecca looks like she's just found out she has cancer but at least like she's turning the idea around in her head. Mario just looks angrier than ever. The others murmur amongst themselves a little and exchange concerned glances.

"What would happen to that person once they all catch up to them?" one of them asks, finally. His name tag is missing, and he notices me looking for it, "Brian. My name is Brian. LVN."

I nod at him and introduce myself even though I have my name tag on still. "I'm Reenee Tyrid. MD." I smile at him as much as I can but I know I must look unhappy anyways. "I think we can do this without losing anyone if we do it right... I think one person can run through the hospital making noise to get all of their attention and lead them through the halls once around so two more of us can come out of the stairwell once the coast is clear and get behind the doors on either side of the waiting room. Since the waiting room has two entrances, the runner will lead the monsters through one door and then sprint through the other, the rest of us will be in charge of closing the doors behind the monsters once they're all in the room and closing the other doors once the runner is out."

The group looks at least a little less concerned now, like they think this is sounding less crazy and more plausible. This is good. The more people that choose to cooperate the more chance we have of this working.

"This is insane! And what are we supposed to draw straws to decide who will be sacrificed!? If even one of them doesn't get trapped in that room we'll have a man eating monster on our hands anyways! This won't work!" Mario yells, gesturing wildly.

"I already told you, you need to keep your god damn voice down. I won't have you putting all of us at risk." I hiss at him again and he moves forward, stooping down slightly to put his angry, sweaty face in my personal space.

"What are you going to do about it, REENEE?" He sneers at me and I lean forward and whisper to him, "I will do what I have to, to keep the rest of these people safe."

Rebecca steps forward and gets between us. "That's enough. We need to work together or we don't have any chance at all." Mario huffs but backs away a step and says nothing. "I think this is as good of a plan as we're going to get, Reenee. I take it there are no volunteers to be the runner?" She asks turning to the rest of the group. They all avoid eye contact, even Brian.

"I'll do it." I murmur. She turns to look at me. "Reenee?...are you...sure?"

I nod and drink some more of my coffee, I'll need it. "I go running every morning. It will be just like any other day..." I shrug and give a small smile. I'm trying to write it off like I'm not terrified so maybe the others will gain some bravery. Mostly they just look relieved that they won't have to do it themselves.

"I'm going to need all of you down there and ready to barricade those doors though. You all saw how strong they were bashing themselves against the doors to try to get at us in the stair well last night. We're going to have to use bars or something to block the doors or this won't work."

Rebecca pours the last of the coffee into my cup and leans back against the counter of the nurse's station. "You're nuts, Ree..." she murmurs back at me and I grin genuinely at her over my coffee cup.

Mario sighs. "I think they keep some chains and padlocks in the janitor's closet. Can your key card get us in there?"

I frown to my coffee. "I'm not sure. I've never tried. Is it on this floor?"

"One below."

"Rebecca, do you know?" She shakes her head at me.

I sigh. "It's worth a shot...if we have those...we'll be set."

**AUTHOR'S NOTE: **I will be trying to update this every day or at least every other day! The new season of The Walking Dead has rekindled my love for the show as a whole and of course especially Daryl! 3 We will hopefully be running into Daryl in this story by the third chapter so please hang in there and always thank you for reading! I know it's mostly set up but I hope I kept it interesting, and reviews and constructive criticism is always appreciated!


	2. Chapter 2

I was swearing to myself and hopping up and down as quietly as I could in the stairwell to try to get my adrenaline going. The hopping was to get my adrenaline going, I mean, the swearing was because I was scared out of my fucking mind. The floor below us didn't appear to be as packed with...zombies...such a weird word to use on people you used to treat... as the ground floor but there were at least 2 that I could see from the glass window of the stairwell.

Mario watched me intensely. Surprisingly enough he was the only one who had volunteered to come with me on this mission, maybe because it was his idea and hope that there were chains to be stolen from the janitor's supply closet, or maybe he was just trying to be brave. Either way, even if he only had half of an IV pole as a weapon, he made me feel somewhat safer. I pulled my keycard off of my neck. The faster we could get in the room, if we could that is, the better chance we had of surviving at all.

"Ready?" He murmurs to me.

"So you do know how to be quiet." I whisper back and despite how terrified I was I was grinning. The adrenaline had set in.

"Shut up." He grunts back and opens the door as silently as he can and then I was off, jogging down towards the nurses' station of this floor as quietly as I could. He was right on my heels but less quiet and as soon as we pass the station there's one of those things after us, I'm shocked and all I can think is that I knew this one, I really knew this one. She was the charge nurse of this floor. I talked to her all the time.

I'm surprised I even recognized her snarling face with those inhuman eyes, like she had jaundice or something. She was making grotesque gurgling, growling noises and from her mouth to her stomach was covered in dried blood. She smelled disgusting and thinking clinically I realized she must have defecated all over herself after she died...

I reach the supply closet but she's too close behind us and Mario takes the IV pole and smacks her over the head with it. My eyes shoot wide in terror to see him do that to someone who was my friend but I don't have time to think about it, I know the reality of this insane situation and so I slide the key card through the slider and pray that it works. The little light on the slider lights green and I hear the door click open, I grab for the handle and pull and grab the back of Mario's shirt as he lands another blow on what was once Robin's head. I pull him in behind me and close the door as quietly as I can but more important quickly. I had seen another one of those things in the hall, and the sound of Robin's skull splitting was more than enough to draw it to us.

I turned around to scope out the closet, panting. He's panting as well. The distance from the stairwell to the janitor's closet wasn't far, I think we're both just scared. Just scared.

There's no one in the closet, at least. This was my biggest fear. One of those things had somehow managed to get in here or even just another person, another doctor or even the janitor was hiding in here from the monsters outside. That may not sound like such a bad thing but it's one more person to have to try to maneuver back up to the top floor and another person to feed and hydrate. It goes against everything I've ever believed in but I'm glad we haven't ran into any more survivors. Safety in numbers only goes so far when these things are attracted to every little noise.

We hadn't even caught our breath back completely when there's a startling bang against the door of the closet. My gasp caught in my throat. Mario picks his pole back up from where he had set it against the wall and gets ready to fight again. I want to tell him it's okay and we should be fine in here but I don't really know myself.

"Where would they be?" I whisper to him.

"See a gray bin anywhere?" His whisper is hardly more than a breath, I can barely hear him but I do. I nod at him and begin searching.

The dim, flickering light of the closet is hardly enough to see each other's faces by but I'm too reluctant to use my phone. I begin digging through the various bins in the closet, through rags and bottles of cleaner until "Yes!" I whisper. He chances a glance back at me and smirks in an "I told you so" sort of way. I roll my eyes at him and begin to pull the chains out as quietly as I can. They want to rattle against each other and they're heavy, very heavy so I put them back down in the bin with the rags and begin searching around for tape or zip ties, something we can use to cover the chains with so they won't make so much noise when we have to run for the stairwell again.

The banging on the door subsided and I thanked the God I used to say I didn't believe in profusely.

Finding some electrical tape on the top shelf in the back of the closet, I rolled up the chains in the rags and taped them up to stop them from rattling and pulled them out of the bin. They were still heavy. All of them together had to weigh more than 15 lbs.

"I'll carry them." Mario whispers suddenly and it catches me off guard.

I considered it for a moment but.."No. I'll carry them. If anything attacks us, you can cover me. You're stronger than I am, I won't be able to defend us the way you can and if you're carrying these you won't be as fast or capable if we are attacked. I've got it."

He frowned but seemed to understand the logic. He nodded. "Are you ready?"

I shook my head. "I think we should wait a little longer. Just because they're not fighting to get in doesn't mean that they're not right outside. We shouldn't fight if we don't have to. It's a waste of energy we don't have."

He shifted back and forth on his feet, looking impatient. He seemed to be considering saying something or other to object but in the end he didn't. He just stood there at the door, shifting back and forth to keep his legs from locking up until ten more minutes had passed according to my watch and then I secured the chains over my shoulders like a messenger bag and got close behind him.

"Now?" He murmured.

"Now." I whispered back. He opened the door quietly and we could immediately see a zombie down the hall in the direction we needed to go. I pulled back his shirt and then looked back in the supply closet. I grabbed a bottle of Fantastico! Window Cleaner and chucked the bottle at an angle down the perpendicular hall and the beast immediately jerked towards it. It started moving in that direction and then I pushed Mario gently out into the hall and we began lightly jogging down towards the stairwell again. We're nearly to the door, he puts his hand on the handle as I slide my card down the slot when one of those beasts comes snarling towards him from his right. I gave a tiny yelp but Mario didn't hesitate at all, he released his grip on the door's handle which I immediately grabbed for and swung his pole into the zombie's skull like a star baseball player. It's funny the images you get in your head, even in dire circumstances like that, it's funny how you can't get them to go away once you've seen them.

The crack of the monster's skull was deafening, like the sound of Robin's skull shattering not even an hour before. The thing fell to the floor, defeated and Mario quickly jumps inside the stairwell as I held the door open for him. I was about to close the door, I could hear and see more of those things coming down the hall now but something stopped me, something made me wonder. I'm a doctor, but my second choice was biological research, what can I say? Something gripped me there and told me to take that thing's body with me. I pulled the chains off my shoulder and chucked them into the stairwell, and then grabbed the arm of the finally dead thing on the floor and began dragging her in with me.

"What are you doing!?" He whisper-screamed at me.

I didn't have the time to explain it to him. Hell, even if I had all the time in the world, I don't think I could have explained to him what I wanted with that body but, those things were getting closer, the closest maybe only fifteen feet away so I just hoarsley whispered back, "Help me!"

He face contorted into a snarl and he shook his head in anger but he grabbed the beast's arm and helped me drag it into the stairwell. We shut the door only moments before those things were at the window again, smashing their faces into the glass. I still couldn't tell if they could actually see us or if they were only attracted to the noise or if there was some other predator instinct that was driving them towards us.

I sat down on the steps with a small oof and panted, trying to catch my breath and when I finally did, I laughed. I covered my mouth with my shirt sleeve to muffle the noise but I couldn't stop laughing. Mario, still with pipe in hand, shook his head at me but after a few seconds he couldn't keep himself from grinning.

"Come on, you fuckin' nut. Help me get your stupid body up the stairs."

This sent me into a new wave of giggles for some reason and he rolled his eyes at me again, but I got up and put the chains back on over my shoulders and grabbed for the feet of what we later discovered was once Nurse Jamie Parker. We lugged Jamie up the flight of stairs and into a hallway crowded with our mortified colleagues and tossed his body onto the closest gurney available.

"What are you doing with that thing!?" One of the girls yelped, there was agreeable murmuring throughout and Brian even piped up quietly, "How do we know it won't get back up?.."

"Because I bashed it's fucking head in!" Mario said harshley, he did seem a bit proud though.

"When he does that, they don't seem to get back up, he did it to another and she didn't get back up either. This has to be some sort of parasite that requires some small amount of brain function. We brought it back to examine it, if I'm going to run around trying to trap these things, and you guys are coming down there with me, I think it's a good idea to know more about them." I tried to explain.

Rebecca nodded in agreement, "I see your point...what do you say then, Ree? Full autopsy?"

I nodded back. "I don't want to cut it open just yet, it already smells pretty damn foul, and it was walking just a few minutes ago. Let's move it into one of the rooms, everyone participating needs to gown up, follow the most contagious contamination procedures."

"I'm having nothing to do with that!" The same prissy girl squeaked and headed back towards the nurses' station. She was beginning to annoy me and for that reason, I wanted to know her name but I didn't get a look at her name tag, if she was even still wearing it. Brian volunteered to participate and Mario suited up too, even though he was only a nursing assistant. Rebecca helped me push the body in to an empty room and we pulled open the blinds and suited up and began our examination.

"Body is stiff, rigor mortis has definitely set in." I murmur, lifting one of the "man"'s arms and bending back his stiff fingers with my gloved ones.

Rebecca clicked on her pen light and pulled open the man's eyes, Mario handed her a few tissues to wipe the blood from his cracked skull and then she shined the light into his eyes.

"Eyes have begun liquidation but if it was...alive...it would still be able to see. Jesus this sounds crazy, it shouldn't even be able to walk much less see, but biologically speaking...if this person was alive they would be able to see...rigor mortis tells us their sense of feeling has weakened and he's definitely defecated all over himself, so he's dead but, I'm willing to bet they can see..." She says.

"If they continue on this way, how long do you think they would keep their eye sight?" I ask quietly. "If they're dead, and their eyes have begun liquidation, their bodies have gone into rigor mortis, how long before the eyeballs liquify enough to not have any sight left?"

She let the eyelid go but it remained open and she shuddered. "I really couldn't tell you...I'm no mortician..if I had to guess? A month? Two months absolute max. If these things continue to decay like a dead body should, there's no way they could keep their vision for long."

"What about hearing?" I asked. She sighed.

"Hearing is a whole different story. Hearing was always the last sense to go, even in comatose patients, you know that. I have no clue about that one, Ree."

I nodded.

"Shall we begin?" She nodded wearily.

"I'm gonna need more coffee."

Brian, who had looked like he was going to be sick any moment quickly chirped up to volunteer to go make more coffee. We let him go. The second he was out the door, I giggled quietly, "Just the face he was making was starting to make me sicker than this guy's."

Rebecca shook her head but smiled, bumping her elbow into my side.

We cut open his leg first to take a look at his tendons. No signs of atrophy whatsoever. Surprising, but we still hadn't been able to place his time of death so it was unclear just how surprising this should even be. We did however discover that his organs were completely blackened. This disease had rot him from the inside out. That was information we could use at least.

"If you hadn't bashed his head in, we would have a better idea of how this virus affects the brain." Rebecca scolded but Mario rolls his eyes and his animosity had returned.

"If I hadn't bashed his head in, "REE" would be one of those things." he said, scowling at her.

I found myself blushing. He was probably right. We wouldn't have those chains and padlocks either. I shrugged at Rebecca.

She went back to examining the body and I followed suit. I rolled up the other leg of his scrubs and immediately noticed the gaping hole in his calf.

"We have a wound...virus entrance..." I murmured and Rebecca was at my side instantly, Mario came around and started pulling down the man's pants more, instantly unleashing a more powerful stench. "Oh god!" I slapped his hand away, "We didn't do that for a reason. Jesus, no." Mario wrinkled his nose and pulled the pants back up and muttered an apology.

"Look at that..." I mumbled to myself more than to either of them. The gaping wound that was almost definitely a bite mark had clotted fairly efficiently but there are clear black lines, darkening the veins from the wound, we followed them up as far as the knee and then recontinued our expedition above his pantline, they went all the way up and made a detour towards his heart, then continued up around the kneck, towards the brainstem.

"It's the bites..." I said numbly.

"Just like the reporters were saying on tv. All those crazy people. They weren't on bath salts. I knew that was bullshit. They were infected and they were spreading the infection until it got too out of control for them to cover up anymore and that's when the shit hit the fan..." Mario added. He shook his head and looked like he was going to punch something, he went towards the window instead.

I looked at Rebecca in awe, not sure of what to say. Her face mirrored mine and it broke my hope for any explanation. I don't know why I expected her to magically know what this virus was or what the hell was going on but the fact that she didn't broke something inside of me, made me understand the absolute chaos of our situation even more.

"I think I'm done..." I said softly and she nodded in agreement. Mario simply headed for the door. We all disposed of our suits, masks and gloves in the bin at the door and then closed the door on our way out. I went to a patient room across the hall and was sort of surprised when they both followed me.

"You okay?" Rebecca asked.

"I'm...processing." I admitted. "I just can't face everyone else and all the questions I'm sure they have just yet."

She nodded and we all sat down, I on the gurney, Rebecca and Mario on the hard hospital chairs.

"This isn't good." I said quietly.

Neither one of them responded.

I checked my watch. Nearly noon.

"If we're still going to do this...I think we need to make a plan and do it soon." I said, and hopped down from the hospital bed.

They followed me to the nurse's station where the others were crowded around in a circle. Brian hung up the phone and frowned down at it before looking back up at us.

"Any signal?" I asked, even though I was sure I knew the answer.

"No...what did you guys find?" He asked in return.

"Virus is being transmitted through bites and maybe scratches of already infected persons.. they're...definitely dead. But they can see and hear just fine. They can walk, maybe even a light jog but not too fast, rigor mortis has set in making them incredibly stiff and some slight vision problems may have set in for the ones who have been...dead the longest." Rebecca explained.

"I know this might sound dumb to you guys but...we have enough snacks and water up here to last us a few more days... if they're getting slower and blinder as time goes by, shouldn't we wait a few more days to try this?" Brian asked.

I frowned. He had a point but... "The less supplies we have, the weaker we'll get. We need to be in the best shape we can be if we want to have a chance at this. If we can take back the break room, we can survive in here for much longer, maybe even get rescued." I said. The others nodded, the whiny girl had removed her name tag I noticed and she didn't look happy about any of this.

"So...we have the chains and locks. Here's what we're going to do..."

**AN: This story is going slower chapter wise than I had intended but I wanted to be thorough! I want this story to be more about her own survival than simply meeting Daryl and falling in love, there are plenty of those on here. I want some real back story to her before she meets him and some back story to her situation. Again, I am promising she will meet him by Chapter 4, even if I have to do a bit of a time skip so bear with me and please review! Keeps me motivated! Also help me with constructive criticism, tell me if I'm a little to draggy and need to speed it along or change something! I appreciate it, Thanks for reading! 3**


	3. Chapter 3

**A/N: Thanks for reading! Please Please review!**

My heart was thumping loudly inside my chest. It felt like I was going to have a coronary, honestly. I could barely breathe and the way my body was reacting was beginning to scare me more and more than the disgusting things downstairs. I was terrified that my body was going to break on me. I would get out into that hallway and it would suddenly freeze up. I wouldn't be able to breathe. I would panic so badly that I would stop moving and that would be the end of me. Not necessarily the zombies, just me, being anxious and stupid.

I slapped myself across the face hard. The bitter sting woke me up better than my favorite starbucks drink with an extra shot and got my adrenaline pumping a little more. I began hopping up and down again. My "teammates" stared at me, unsure of how to react, after a moment they all just looked at each other and then turned away. I suppose they must have understood what I was trying to do, or maybe they just decided that whatever the hell I was doing was none of their business, as none of them volunteered to run through the halls first…

"Are you ready?" Mario asked softly.

He's not pressuring me at all, I can tell. But it's obvious that we're all anxious as hell standing in the stairwell and we need to get moving before we break down. All of us.

"Okay."

He gave a curt nod and moved forward, the others parted for him like the red sea, and I followed behind him, feeling like a prisoner going to the electric chair or what? Injection chamber? They all stared at me as I passed. Way to encourage me, guys.

We reached the door and he again looked to me for confirmation that I was prepared. Prepared? No. Not a bit. I nodded again. He swallowed and went for the handle with his left hand, the IV pole still in his right. I looked down at the identical pole I now carried as well.

"Good luck." He whispered.

"You too." I whispered back. "God help us." I think.

He opened the door, I took tossed my metal pole from my right hand to my left and then back again, jumped a few more times and then jogged out into the hall.

They were everywhere, I mean everywhere. There was one right behind the door and it made a grab for me. I was barely out of it's reach. I jogged off down the hall and when I got to the turn, I clanged the pole against an exam room door, effectively gaining the attention of any zombies I hadn't already gotten the attention of. I rounded the corner and ran into one straight on. I yelped, lost balance. The thing is grappling for me, chomping prematurely, ready for me and there are more directly in front of me, they line the hall. I shoved the thing away, risking getting my hand bitten and it grabbed onto my sleeve. I swung the pole at it's head, trying to mimic Mario's actions early and I land it. The disgusting crack I had heard earlier was much louder than the one I created right then but it did the job. The disgusting humanoid thing landed on the ground and I ran forward, zig zagging out of the reach of grasping arms. There were so many. I felt dizzy. Like I had stayed up for 3 days straight and was about to pass out. I kept going.

I braced the pole in front of me as I rounded another corner, towards the ER's waiting room. This hall was surprisingly close to empty. There were only three monsters as far as I could see. I stuck the hand holding the pole straight out and let it slide along the wall, making as much noise as I could in the process. The things came towards me and I could hear the ones from the last hall hot on my heels. I dodged around them, smacking one more in the head with the pole when it drew too near. I couldn't afford to get grabbed again, that had been way too close. All of their survival was also counting on my success.

I rounded the last corner into the waiting room, clanging the pole loudly against the door frame as I went. There were only two in the waiting room. Stragglers, I guessed. Since we had closed off the waiting room shortly before all hell had broken loose both inside and outside of the hospital, most of the ones inside the hospital had died and gotten back up and begun eating people in the exam rooms and halls and then chased us and were shot down by the military men in the halls near the stairwell and front entrance. These ones must have just missed the memo. At the clanging noises, they turn and look at me, begin ambling towards me. This is fine. I can handle them. It's mostly just the mob of nearly 100 now that is following me, maybe just half a hall behind that has me worried, and the ones up ahead that I will encounter on my way back to the stairwell. It's time to sprint.

I sped up as I exited the waiting room, hoping that the ones that were still around the corner, too slow to keep up with me, would remain that distance behind me. I banged the pole against the metal door frame as I exited the waiting room down another hall, hoping to make a full loop back to the stair well and then back to the waiting room. The first hall was nothing. Literally, nothing, not a single one. The second hall back was like the first once again, they were everywhere. Ready for me, attracted to the noise I made just seconds before and coming my way. I pulled to the right, and braced myself, zig zagging between bodies like I was at a concert. One came forward, she looked like a woman, but I couldn't think about that. I had to see them as something other than human. They weren't people anymore. I front high kicked her into the wall with my right leg, and swung forward with the pole to repel the others coming my way and kept running, spinning to escape some. I was dizzy, I was getting more exhausted by the second. How long could I possibly keep this up for? Another minute? Minute and a half tops? My adrenaline was the only thing keeping me going at this point, I was sure of it.

I rounded the corner and there were considerably less here, I dodged a few and dragged the pole against the wall, rounded the next hallway back towards the stair well door and there were none. This was a good sign. It means that any that were here were already rounded up and chasing me.

I got to the stairwell door, Mario was staring out the window intensely, I could see Rebecca up the stairs in the background. I gave him the thumbs up to indicate once the mob had passed they needed to follow. Half of them would take half of the chains and head the way I would go back to the waiting room now, the other half would go the way I came from, to the other waiting room door and get ready. I was praying in my head that they could be fast. Only for a minute, guys, sprint like your God damn lives depend on it because they do, because they all do.

I tried to keep my breathing steady but the stitch in my side had started to take over and spread into my lungs. I could barely breathe at all anymore.

I clanged the pole against everything I could, making as much noise as possible to get them to follow me and swang wide as I rounded the next hallway to make sure I didn't run into the waiting arms of any more of those things. Again, there were none. Not a single one down the hallway that had been packed with them not three minutes before. I continued hitting everything I could in the hallway, trying to breathe, I could feel my legs wanting to slow down. I wanted to cry for the pain in my side. I couldn't take it.

I rounded the next hall and there were still none in sight, I jogged by, slamming the pole against anything and everything that would make a good loud noise. I rounded the next corner to the waiting room and then there was a problem. There were about six "stragglers" standing around in the room, practically waiting for me. Maybe they were at the end of the pack and had heard the noises coming when I came back around and got confused, started going the other way. I don't know. But they were coming straight for me now and I had to think, I had to move, I couldn't go back, I could hear the grotesque gurgling moans following behind me. I high kicked one of them out of the way and they toppled onto another and then I swung the pole into the head of the next in line and kicked another out of the way and moved forward, around the next and kicked another one out of my way as I turned back around. I swung the pole once more and cracked another in the skull, and then grabbed a chair and slid it behind me towards the door of the waiting room. The mob was filing in behind me now, I was panicking.

I abandoned the chair about ten feet from the door, hoping it would stall them even for a second. I raced out the doors and then slammed them shut, there were none in this hall but the ones in the waiting room were coming for me and fast. Where were the others? I held it shut but I didn't have long they would be pushing against it in no time and I didn't stand a chance against a mob that size. I stuck my pole in through the door handles. My only weapon was now gone. I had nothing.

Footsteps behind me. If it was more zombies, I would be screwed, dodging and kicking would be my only hope. I turned, keeping my hands tight on the pole, bracing it just as some of the monsters inside slammed up against the door, shaking me along with it. Suddenly there were hands coming around me, I screamed, and squeezed my eyes shut. They grabbed my shoulders, pushed me away from the door and I could hear the chains. I opened my eyes.

Rebecca's beautiful face was peering into mine. Her green eyes were wide with concern, she was checking me over for bite marks, or other injuries, I could tell by her face. I shoo her off of me, turning my attention to the door. "Help." Is all I manage to get out but she understands and I slam my body against the doors, pushing them back enough for them to wrap the chains around once more, they padlock them and then, just like that the deed is done. I sighed with relief for a moment before I began running back down the hallway towards the other door. Mario wasn't at this door, he had to be at the other, and the majority of our group was at this door with me. I could only hope…

I got to the other side and there he was, walking towards me already, looking smug. "Jesus Christ." I managed to breathe out.

"Nah, but I'm pretty close. I know." Mario said, looking cockier than ever.

I shook my head at him and then threw up all over the floor.

I fell to my knees. I felt awful. I hadn't had anything to eat, all I had in me was coffee. Everything I was throwing up was stomach acid and it was burning the hell out of my throat. I was so dizzy. I tried to push myself back up but I couldn't. I felt so weak. I just wanted to lie down…

I felt strong arms lifting me from the cool floor and then everything went black.

"Where am I?" I murmured, I lifted my head. My mouth tasted absolutely disgusting. My head hurt, bad, like I had just been punched into a wall. I felt something small and wet being lifted off of my forehead.

"You're okay, sweetheart. We're in the break room. Have some water." Rebecca was by my side immediately, she took the washcloth that had been on my forehead back to the sink and returned with a bottle of water, she sat down near my feet.

"How you doin'?"

"Dizzy." I confessed, taking the water from her and guzzling it down. I knew I should be conserving it but I couldn't help it. I felt so sick.

"Head hurt?" She asked gently.

I made an mmhmm noise at her and she got up again and I gulped down more water. She returned with two aspirin and I took them gratefully. She sat back down and put a hand on my leg. I noticed now that one of my pant legs has blood all over it. It wasn't my blood, I was sure.

"Here." Mario is there suddenly, handing me a snack bag of cheezits. I took them gratefully, giving him a small smile. He nodded in return and went back to one of the little tables and sat, eating his own baggie of chips.

"You should eat that. You passed out from probably a mixture of anxiety and exhaustion." Rebecca said calmly.

"Share them with me." I said quietly. She smiled and I sat up fully to give her more room beside me.

Rebecca ate most of the chips, I was more interested in my water.

"Were there any stragglers?" I asked her finally.

She looked almost startled by my speaking for a moment, but then she shook her head. "No, none that we saw at least…..I can't believe your crazy ass plan actually worked."

I had to grin at that and when I looked away from her I realized half of the people in the room were grinning back at me.

"I couldn't have done a damn thing without all of you. Thanks for having faith in my crazy ass plan." I said.

Brian nodded, Mario, shook his head, drank his water. A few of them laughed. It was nice. For a while it was nice.

"What do we do now?" I asked Rebecca, in a much softer tone.

"I'm not sure." She confessed, shrugging her shoulders at me.

I hmmmed in return.

"Maybe we ought to go look for more survivors…" I said quietly. Rebecca instantly shook her head.

"That's too dangerous. If there are still real people in here anywhere they can come find us. We can't risk that, not right now." Mario piped up, looking at me.

I frowned at him but I had to agree. But what about the patients? What if there are patients hiding in their rooms down here in the ICU that hadn't been touched yet because they had been smart enough to close the door? How would they know that they could come out? They would starve to death in there…

I supposed Rebecca had to be right. If they absolutely needed help, and if they were going to survive they could come find us…that was just the way it had to be..

We piled the majority of the things from the vending machines into a laundry bag and carried them back up the stairs to the top floor. We hadn't seen any straggling zombies on the bottom floor but none of us were exactly eager to try sleeping down there. The break room was cramped and there were no beds. We would have better luck of both sleeping and surviving on the top floor.

I was the first to call it quits at only 4 pm, according to my watch and the Georgia sun. I pushed a hospital bed into a separate room and told Rebecca she could sleep in there with me if she wanted to but I needed some shut eye right there and then. I closed the blinds as tightly as they would go and laid down in the hospital bed, after closing the door behind me. I wished it had a key card but I figured I would be okay, as long as these things didn't figure out how to open doors.

I thought again about any patients that may be around in the hospital still. It didn't matter. I couldn't linger on it. My next big focus had to be getting out of here…and soon.

I fell asleep quickly after and didn't wake up until the next morning.

"I think we should leave here." I said the next morning, after we all had another weak cup of coffee in our hands.

The others didn't make much eye contact. They kept sipping their coffees. Even Rebecca didn't want to meet my eyes.

"We're safe here." The annoying girl piped up finally. I wanted to roll my eyes but I refrained.

"For how long? What happens when we run out of everything in the hospital?"

The others do look at me this time but most of them just give me a baleful, sheepish look, like they're guilty of something.

"This is a serious question." I added.

"We know that." Mario grumbled. "We just don't know what to do. We all know we can't stay here indefinitely but pressuring us to go doesn't exactly make it any easier. Where will we go? Do you even have a plan?"

It was my turn to look guilty.

"No. Not yet. That's why I wanted to talk about it. I kind of think our best shot is the CDC. It is a place that researches viruses after all. Maybe some of us can provide some kind of help there…even if we can't they're equipped to last months in case of a disaster like this. Our hospital's generators will only keep the lights on for so long. Three weeks, maybe? I'm not really too sure…and then what? Will the key cards even work after the electricity is gone? What if we get trapped up here? Or those things get in once the key card deactivate?"

Then there was some murmuring amongst the group. They seemed to have realized there was some merit to my blathering.

"We'll be rescued before it ever comes to that!" The annoying girl squeaked and there's some murmuring of agreement.

"Are you kidding me?!" I ask annoyed. "You really think that? The army couldn't even take back this hospital, what makes you think that anyone is going to be able to come in now, after the fact, now that they're all over the streets and make everything okay? And let's say they do. Who's to say it will be before the generators run out? If they rescue us two months from now, they'll be rescuing corpses."

The group fell silent.

"I need real suggestions because I am going to leave this place, with or without any of you in a week at the latest."

Rebecca made eye contact with me after that. She looked stressed. This was a hard decision for her, I was sure. Stay with the group and feel safe or be rational. She gave me a curt nod. Good. I had her. I looked around the group. They were failing to make eye contact again. They were unwilling to leave their safe haven. Fine. Let them starve. I had no room for idiots in my group anyways.

I turn to my right again, Mario is making eye contact with me, but he is looking at me hard, like he's trying to figure out my angle. I have none. He'll find no tricks from me. Just someone who wants to get somewhere better, find a way to survive more indefinitely if needed. He grunts finally and nods his head a few times at me, then rolls his eyes to the ceiling and kind of tries to pretend he didn't make any noise. I give a small smile. Good. That was all I needed then.

We devised a plan that night, just the three of us.

Steal an ambulance, shouldn't be too hard, Rebecca and I knew where they kept the keys, drive to the outskirts of Atlanta, gather as many supplies as we can. We began stockpiling our food. Pretending to take two bags of chips for dinner, saving one. Eight days later we woke up early, and ready to leave. We had a decent amount of food stockpiled and it was clear that the food supply in the hospital was already running low, no one was conserving. The group had no order. They were all just scared and stupid.

"Ready?" Rebecca whispered to me, pulling on her backpack full of food and water.

I zipped mine up and looked to Mario. "Ready."

**Once again, thank you so much for reading! Daryl does without a doubt make his appearance in the next episode! Good stuff! And it's the weekend so almost definitely a chapter a day! Please Review, I would really appreciate it!**


	4. Chapter 4

**A/N: WARNING: This Chapter is extremely long and full of cuss words! You have been warneddddd**

Atlanta was a mess. I don't know why we ever thought it would be a good idea to go there. Why hadn't I realized that someone would have ransacked most everything by now anyways? I don't know, and it doesn't matter. What matters is that we had driven the ambulance to a small drug store on the outskirts of the city. Small in Atlanta is still pretty big and the place was crawling with those humanoid things. Calling them zombies felt wrong, but I had no other words for them. Mario killed most of them and we made our way inside.

Rebecca even killed one once we got inside but there were only maybe six in the store, and Mario and I killed most of them. I see them less and less as humans every time I split one's skull open. I saw the flatline for myself. I know they are something else. A parasite even, perhaps. I'm not sure. I've never seen a virus like this in my life, even in text books.

The store was mostly in tact actually, unlike several of the larger, mainstream grocery stores we had passed on the way there and we went to the back employee break room to make sure the entire store was secure. The break room had a lock on the inside, and we were able to lock the sliding glass doors at the front of the store, which no longer worked anyways and had to be pried open.

"What do you guys think?" I asked, leaning against the break room door. Slumping down, feeling tired already, despite only being awake for maybe five hours now.

"I think we could stay here for a while." Mario said, tilting his head to the side, thoughtfully. "I know you wanted to head for the CDC, but I gotta be honest, Reenee, I think that's where most people would head. There's a reason this store is still so together. Everyone who didn't die fled somewhere, somewhere they didn't think they would need much. I'd bet the CDC locked their doors the first night. If they're trying to cure this thing they can't take the risk of infection from people themselves. All it takes is one mama tryin' to protect her sick kid." He sounded bitter but I understood. It seemed that was always how these things spread, especially from continent to continent. Something that starts in Asia or Europe, eventually makes it's way to us, and how? Children. Mothers hoping their sick babies can get better help from American doctors send their infected kids our way and then screw the lot of us. Mario is right. If the people at the CDC had any heart at all they wouldn't be able to turn away the children and that would be their biggest downfall. They would have to turn away everyone and working with diseases constantly? They were smart enough to know this.

"I think we should stay here. At least for a while." Rebecca pitched in. "He makes a good point, that's exactly how this crap works, and there's so much stuff here, water, food, toilet paper and tampons even. We have everything we need to last a while."

I nodded. "I agree, but I have to say I think our biggest fear would be how much stuff we have… if a gang of other survivors comes by with weapons…we'll be fucked. They could take everything and kill all of us."

"I'd rather go out by a gun than any of those things. I would welcome it." Mario said gruffly. His dark hair was getting shaggy, I noticed now, and he was beginning to need a shave. I wondered if the water here was running or not. There were definitely packaged razors and shaving cream in the store, maybe he could use one water bottle to rinse if he absolutely had to. Why was I thinking about this? I don't know. I was beginning to wonder how much of a mess I must look like myself. Rebecca looked beautiful as always, but she never wore much makeup to begin with. She had a beautiful face, naturally blonde, long hair and stunning green eyes. My own "beauty" paled in comparison.

"Let's stay." I said finally. "I think we should go back out to the ambulance and grab the bedding now, before it gets dark."

They agree and we grab our assorted weapons, Mario now had two large, metal poles, Rebecca had one as well, and I had a large wrench. I sort of missed the pole, myself, but the wrench was harder, sturdier, even if it did mean closer contact.

We ventured back outside and Rebecca stayed at the door, holding it open and looking out while Mario and I unloaded the bedding we had pulled off of gurneys and hospital beds and brought it back into the store without issue.

We set up our little makeshift beds in a row, a few inches apart on the floor of the break room. There was one cot but none of us really wanted to take it.

"Should someone stay up to keep look out?" Rebecca questioned once we had finished setting up camp.

"For what?" I snorted, "It's a single locked room, and I don't think any of us wants to roam around the store in the dark at night, if something does come in, it won't be able to get in to this room without all of us knowing, and if something is out there in the store, we'll all deal with it together. No one goes anywhere by themselves. We all go together."

They agreed and we ventured out into the store to find dinner before the sun went down. That night was good. We found a battery operated stove, several, in the outdoor cooking area and were able to make a few cans of soup. I was so happy to have those in place of the bags of chips we had been living off of for the past week or so, I could feel a decline in my health. I was sad that all of the milk had of course spoiled but I looked like some of the eggs might have made it, we decided to try them the next morning. Things were okay. Considerably better than the hospital, in my opinion, and no more annoying people to deal with…although I did have to wonder how they were getting on. I pushed them out of my brain. There were dozens of people in the world who had different stories happening, and I couldn't think of them either. I had to focus on myself, and right now, I was okay.

The next day, we tried the eggs and they were delicious, I practically cried with joy. Mario was able to shave, after some prompting from me and Rebecca and I were finally able to wash our faces. A waste of water, definitely but self care is still on the hierarchy of needs, I would rather have a clean face than begin to lose my sanity in this awful situation. I checked myself out in the mirror. My wavy, dark hair was a knotted mess that I couldn't be bothered with. I found a pack of hair ties and pulled it up into a bun, my bangs fell to the sides of my face. Without foundation my light brown freckles were more obvious, peppering my pale face, but I couldn't be bothered to put makeup on at this time, even though I was sure there was plenty in the store. Rebecca went for the eyeliner and I did steal some of that though.

We piled up boxes and bags in front of the store windows so the creatures wouldn't see in and neither would any looters, we left small "windows" for ourselves, covered with only a sheet of paper or piece of cardboard so we could remove it to look out when we wanted to. This did give us less day light to work with but we were okay. Even if I occasionally felt like a rat, hunting around in the dark for food at dinner time. Days passed and we were doing good there, great even. Days bled into weeks and we were still fine, happy even. We had made a little home there and we were pretty content. We had enough bottled water and food to last us a while. I tried to add it up but it was just too much. I gave them a rough estimate of 3 months though, but it would probably be even more, honestly. Especially once we started noticing our supplies getting low, we could start rationing it more.

After three weeks of being there, we had fallen into a pleasant routine. We would get up in the morning and accompany each other to the restrooms. There was no running water so the restrooms smelled terrible but it was still a set aside place to release and when the door was closed the smell didn't leak into the rest of the store, so we really didn't mind too much. We would then walk around the store together, once again making sure nothing had gotten in during the night or that we had never overlooked anything. The exercise was also good for us, we tried to walk around the store completely, every aisle and the back storage room, four times a day. We would then peek out our little windows and see what we could see. All we ever saw was a sparse amount of zombies, ambling through the street at random. They didn't even seem to know where they were going. We found a stairwell leading up to the roof and we went up there sometimes too, just to peek down but more often than not we didn't really have any reason to, unless I was having a cigarette. Then they both would accompany me. We would make food together, sit around, talk. Find games and crossword puzzles in the store. We didn't exactly have much to do. It was nice. Not being so busy for once.

It was our 26th day being there, it was nearing lunch time and I was doing Rebecca's makeup for the hell of it, applying blush to her perfect cheekbones, when we heard it. A high pitched chirping. It was a car alarm and it was getting closer. I perked up immediately and Rebecca looked up to the ceiling as though she could identify it from there, but that gave me an idea.

I leapt to my feet and bounded towards the stairwell, Rebecca grabbed her pipe and was hot on my trail. Mario, who had been playing solitaire on a battery operated toy noticed and grabbed his new weapon, an aluminum baseball bat and raced after us.

I made it to the edge of the roof just in time. I saw the red car leave the city's main road in a flash. It was far away but it was easy enough to make out. I could see all the zombies in the street below ambling towards the noise. That was a person. It had to be. Hot on the trail of the red car was a large white truck, I watched them until I could no longer see them down the road. Rebecca and Mario saw the truck for sure.

"People.." she voiced quietly what I was sure we were all thinking.

"What do we do?" I asked to no one in particular. Maybe even to myself.

"What do you want to do?" Mario asks, lowering his head and raising his eyebrows inquisitively. His dark skin has gotten paler staying inside all the time, I noticed. Rebecca mimics his facial expression towards me. Who decided I was the leader here?

"I'm not sure." I admitted. "Let's just go back inside. We'll think about it."

Plopping back down on the floor of the makeup aisle, now with paper notebook and pen in hand, I drew up a PRO/CON list. Mario snorted at me.

"What!?" I wrinkled my nose at him.

"Isn't that a little high school for a _DOCTOR?_" He chuckled at me. Rebecca giggled from beside me. I wrinkled my nose at her too.

"Call it what you want but I guarantee it will help us decide what to do. PRO/CON lists are the answer to life. They helped me decide to be a doctor." I said matter of factly, drawing numbers down the lined spaces.

"Look where that got you." Mario muttered jokingly, still grinning and I elbowed him.

"Pro: More people, less Mario." I said, jotting it down on the Pro list. Rebecca sniggered beside me.

Mario rolled his eyes at me but then turned serious, "If we are going to go, we should go soon. All of those things have been drawn away from here by the noise of the car, it's probably safest to go soon."

I hadn't thought of that. "Yeah.." I agreed.

"More people means that they might have more of a plan. There's a lot of stuff here but we can't stay indefinitely. We all know that. And we still run the risk of running into some not so friendly people." Rebecca added.

I added "New plans" to the Pro list.

"What if they _are_ some not so friendly people?" Mario grumbled.

I added "Bad people" to the Cons list.

"They might have weapons. Real ones." I said.

"That can go both ways." Mario interrupted, and I added weapons to both sides of the list.

"They might need a doctor or two on their team." Rebecca said.

I smiled at her, "That would go on their pro/con list. Not ours. It gives them a reason to need us, but it doesn't do anything for us other than that."

"Well, if someone is hurt. We could help them." She added and then we heard screaming.

It was the loud bellow of a man, only a street or two away by the sounds of it.

Rebecca's eyes shot wide and she looked at me, Mario, had his bat back in his hand at the ready, and he was looking at me too.

"We can't save everyone…He could be dead by the time we get there…" I said quietly. Mario nodded but Rebecca looked disbelieving.

"What if every ambulance driver, every EMT thought that?" She huffed. "You're a doctor, Ree, we can't ever give up if there's a chance we could save someone."

I sighed. She was right but she wasn't thinking realistically. We could walk into a death trap of those things. The yell could be heard again and her eyes trained on me even more intensely.

"FINE. We're going to pack everything we can, and I mean EVERYTHING. We're going to go help this guy and then we're going to head after those other survivors. Good?"

Rebecca nodded excitedly, smiling at me. It was hard to believe she was older than me sometimes. Mario nodded but looked less than excited. He didn't think this was a good idea.

"Rebecca, grab some binoculars and scope out the streets as much as you can. See if you can find this guy, or at least get an idea of where he might be, yeah?" She nodded and jumped up, running for the outdoor section.

Mario, start packing up all the food and water you can. I'm going to change my clothes and then I'll meet you at the front of the store to help you get things into the ambulance. He nodded and stood up but hesitated. He helped me to my feet. Once Rebecca was out of ear shot he turned to me. "You really think we should do this?"

I looked into his dark eyes. "No. I don't know. But I think we should try."

"Why? It's like you said, we could be walking into a death trap, we have no idea what we're getting into!" He hissed, irritated. "This could be a death sentence for all of us!"

"You can stay if you want to….I would be sad but I won't force you to do this with us…but just like you would rather be shot… I would rather go out doing something I was meant to do. Helping someone. I would rather die being ripped apart by those inhuman things while trying to save a life than be found cowering in a break room, surrounded by supplies that I'm not sharing with anyone, and murdered for them. I won't do it."

He held my gaze for a long time and then sighed. "You really fuckin' suck, you know that, Ree?"

"Believe me." I sighed, "I know."

I hurried off to the meager clothing department and changed right there in the aisle out of my dirty hospital scrubs and into a clean white shirt. I found a pair of jeggings that were too big for my short legs but slid them on anyways and pulled them up to my belly button to bring them to the right height. I couldn't care less.

I redid my hair into a bun and grabbed a few sticks of eyeliner for the road, foundation was too much of a bother but my overall appearance was made about 1000x better by just a little bit of eyeliner. I rubbed a bit around my eyes and then slipped on a pair of thin fuzzy black boots. They were mostly flat but they would provide more protection and coverage than my hospital shoes, they were even easier to run in than those flat safety shoes.

I ran to the front of the store, where Mario had already stacked up seven or eight cardboard boxes full of various food. I'm beginning to question whether we can really get everything in the ambulance or not.

"Maybe we should make one trip to the other survivors, find out what's going on before we head for that guy." I said quietly.

"You think Becca will let you do that?" He smirked at me.

"She hates being called Becca." I smirked back.

But then she was running back up the aisle towards us.

"He's on the roof! He's on the roof maybe three buildings that way!" She pointed out the front window. It made sense. That's where the red car with the car alarm had come from, and the truck that had followed it.

"They left one of their people behind…" I said softly. I was growing less certain about these people. Maybe the situation had gotten bad and he hadn't been able to escape with them… I wasn't sure. It seemed kind of unlikely.

"He's alive?" I asked Rebecca.

She nodded, "It sure seems like it. He's flailing around everywhere and I think still yelling sometimes just not as loud. It looks like he's stuck to something."

I thought about the situation. It was hotter than hell outside. Middle of the summer in Atlanta, Georgia. It had to be about 5 PM and there was a small summer drizzle earlier but it still had to be 100 or over.

"He'll bake out there…" I said softly. "We have to go for him. Pack everything, I mean everything we possibly can, I don't care if Rebecca has to sit on my lap, we need to take as much as we can, Rebecca help him pack up the food as efficiently as possible. I'll meet you back in a minute."

I jogged back to the outdoor section and found an umbrella, a golf club and a beach bag, I threw the umbrella into the beach bag and then piled in five water bottles and some baggies of chips and then ran with the golf club back to the front.

"These things look great." I told Rebecca, swinging the golf club back and forth, appreciating the sound of the metal head swooshing through the air.

"I like what I got, thanks." She grinned at me, the pole was sticking out of her back pocket. I could see why she would prefer it. She and I were both what you would call "Fun sized" and it was easier to have a short, metal rod like that than a golf club that was over half your size. We peeked through the windows and finding the coast to be clear, we pried the front doors open and I helped Mario start loading boxes into the back of the ambulance. We piled it as full as we possibly could and then pulled the doors closed, we filed into the ambulance ourselves, Rebecca sat on my lap and the beach bag laid down by my feet, along with the golf club.

We drove down the next street over and then the next street after that until Rebecca recognized the back of the building the man was on. There were quite a few zombies roaming around outside the building, it looked like some sort of department store.

"You're sure this is the one?"

She nodded. "Ready?" I whispered to them, once Mario had parked near a fire escape and shut off the engine.

"Ready." She murmured.

He grunted his confirmation.

I slid her off of my lap and towards the drivers seat, this left her in an uncomfortable position for a moment but I wasn't willing to let her slide out into the alleyway first. There were at least three coming for us and I knew it. Mario was the first to actually make it out onto the ground and he went straight for the nearest one. I slid out of the van and followed suit, then helped Rebecca reach the ladder, giving her a boost with my hands. Mario then helped me up and swung into one more zombie's skull before following us up himself. We made it up to the roof in no time.

We reached the top and instantly saw the howling man. He was kicking his feet around and reaching for something. As we approached it was clear that Rebecca was right, he was stuck. He had been handcuffed to a pipe on the roof of this building, what he was reaching for looked like a wrench or a saw or something and then we noticed the zombies pushing at the door of the roof. They had gone through the building, evidently, and were vying to get at this guy. All his howling had attracted them, I wanted to call him an idiot for it but it had also attracted us who could help him.

"Hey!" I spoke as we got nearer. He visibly startled and then rolled over.

"Well, hello there, babydoll!" He said gruffly. "Hand me that saw there, would ya?" He said raspily.

I didn't say anything in return, I just set down my golf club, put down the beach bag I had been carrying and pulled out a bottle of water, handing that to him instead.

He took it greedily, without a thank you and began chugging it down.

"How did you get handcuffed up here?" I asked gently, scooting away from him a ways and then standing again.

"Damn asshole cop. Came out of nowhere started shootin' everythin'. Me an my group were here gatherin' supplies and this bastard comes out of o nowhere, blows our whole damn cover and then when I get angry he handcuffs me to this god damn roof! Piece o shit even tossed my drugs up off the damn buildin! I don't know who he thinks he is, not like there's no law round here no more! Then they all made off an left me here! God damn asshole left nigga dog with the keys and he threw them down the fuckin drain!" He gulped more water down.

Rebecca, Mario, and I exchanged awkward glances.

"Cops usually have spare keys don't they?" Rebecca asked me softly.

"Course he does, he was a god damn 'SHERRIFF'" He sneered, he said Sherriff mockingly. I couldn't exactly blame him for being pissed though.

"What do we do?" Rebecca squeaked.

"You go get that asshole and make him come back here with that fuckin key!" The man yelled.

"Tell my baby brother when you get there and he'll make 'em come."

Mario lifted his eyebrows at me.

"What is your name?" I asked finally.

"Merle Dixon, what's yours sweetheart?" He asked. I frowned.

"It's not sweetheart, I can tell you that much." I muttered. "Where is your group? How can we find them?"

"Oh, they only about 10 miles down the road, straight outta the city, they ain't hidin, they got a big ol Winnebago an everythin', sweet cheeks, can't miss 'em."

I chew on my lip a little bit and peer out over the edge. The street is recrowding with the zombies. We need to make a decision and soon. I walk to the side with the fire escape down to where we parked the ambulance. Only two are down there at the moment but I'm not sure how long it will stay that way. Rebecca and Mario follow me, and I'm glad to be out of ear shot for a moment.

"This guy is shady as fuck." Mario grumbles to me.

Rebecca looks away but it's clear to me that she agrees. It doesn't matter and I know it, a life is a life to her.

"Head down the road, see if you can find the survivors. I'm going to stay here with him. It'll be getting dark soon." I said, looking up at the sky, "If you have to stay the night there, then do it. I'm staying here with him. I need to be sure that if those things start to break the door, we can get him out of here if you don't make it back in time. Explain the situation to the people. I'm sure they'll see reason. They have a cop with them."

They both look reluctant but a few more zombies are coming down the alley now and I usher them to go. "I'll be fine. I have my golf club. I'll be okay. Just try to be back here before noon tomorrow, okay?"

Rebecca looked close to tears, "I love you, Ree." She whimpers as she begins going down the ladder after Mario.

"I love you too, Rebecca." I smile at her, "It'll be okay."

I watched them clamber into the ambulance from the closest door, Rebecca crawls over the seats to get to the passenger side and then they're off before any of those things could even get near them. I watch them drive down the streets for as long as I can until they're out of my view, blocked by towers of grey, desolate buildings that used to be filled with people.

"Ay! What's goin' on!?" Merle bellows at me and I stalk back over to him.

"Shush! You're going to get us both killed!" I hissed at him and he outright chuckled at me.

"You see them chains, baby doll? Ain't even these things gonna get through them."

I hmmed at him. I was far less sure. The chains were large and metal, sure but I was far less certain about them lasting against the pressure of fifty or more large bodies pressing against it.

"So what you doin' here anyway baby girl?" He asked, reaching for the chips in my beach bag.

I pushed them closer to him. I was sitting far enough way that he couldn't touch me, the beach bag was lying between us. I didn't trust him. He did drugs for one thing, he admitted that, and he seemed like a hot head, I doubted a sheriff would have handcuffed him to this room for no reason. He also had signs of being in a fight recently. What he had done, I had no idea but I wasn't interested in putting myself in a situation where he could do anything to me.

"I'm saving your ass." I said shortly, and pulled a pack of cigarettes out of the side pocket of the beach bag.

"Well, lookit you!" He exclaimed, looking pleased but a little too interested as I lit the cigarette.

"Lemme get one of those, little girl." He said. He was being friendly enough but I was still thirty-three and not interested whatsoever in being called a "little girl", when you're 5'2 you get made fun of for being small all the time. Being called a "little girl" or "little" in any way was just annoying after the ten billionth time.

I tossed a cigarette to him and then the lighter.

"I want that back." I said as sweetly as I could.

He chuckled and lit his smoke, tossed the lighter back to me.

"So where you from?"

I understood wanting to make light conversation so things wouldn't get awkward but, honestly, even though I was a doctor I wasn't much of a people person. That's why I usually worked in the ER, where my patient interaction was limited to diagnosing, patching up, saying goodbye.

"I lived in North Druid Hills. I was a doctor at an Urgent Care facility not far from there. Where are you from?" I admitted this as casually as I could between drags. He laughed at me and I looked at him, lifting an eyebrow.

"You're one of them high and mighty rich kids huh? Me an my baby brother from a little trailer park not too far from here neither. Never had no silver spoon in our mouths, tell you that, just a beer bottle or two." He chuckled.

I wrinkled my nose in disgust. I didn't care much for alcohol, I've always thought it rots you from the inside out, but cigarettes were much the same. This "silver spoon" bullshit was going to get real old real fast I can tell.

"Despite what you might think, North Druid Hills isn't that great of a town. Nice, pleasant enough. I'm missing it now, but still, just because North is in the name doesn't mean it's the shit, okay? And I had to work full time the entire 8 god damn years I was in school, I worked for everything I had and now it was all pointless. All I have is my medical knowledge. My home, my possessions mean nothing, but I can assure you a silver spoon was never one of them."

He snorted at me and I rolled my eyes. This was going to be a fun night, I could tell.

"Look, precious. A guy like me could work his whole damn life and never make it to medical school anyways. There just ain't no place there for my type. They're some kind of bias against us."

I rolled my eyes again.

"Yes, I'm sure you're right." I mumbled, stomping my cigarette out beneath my boot. The sun had gone down completely now and I was getting chilly and a little scared. The moans from the things behind us were ever present and in the dark they were even more frightening. I could hear the chains on the door rattling as they were pressed. I wondered if we should try to be quiet. I felt certain that my friends wouldn't be back until morning.

"We should sleep." I said quietly.

"You do that, baby girl, I'll keep watch."

I thanked him although I was sure his drug problem had more to do with his staying awake than any sort of protective feelings for me, and then scooted another foot or two away, taking the pack of cigarettes with me and leaving him three single ones and the lighter for the night. I fell asleep listening to the moans of the decrepit creatures trying to force their way to my skin.

I woke up to the Georgia sun beating down on my back. I felt groggy. I hated waking up so overheated. I propped myself up and reached desperately towards the beach bag for water.

"'Bout time, princess! Pass me another one of them stoges would ya?"

I had momentarily forgotten about my wonderful friend. I pulled a cigarette out of the pack and chucked it to him.

"It's so hottttt." I groaned, gulping down water.

He gave a raspy little laugh from beside me.

"You're tellin' me. It's only gettin' hotter."

I checked my watch. 9:50 AM.I wondered how hot it must be. I didn't even want to eat although my body was starving by this point. Merle on the other hand had clearly gone through several bags of chips, favoring the hot Cheetos by the wrappers.

I stood up and looked around. There were still hands coming through the gap in the door, the chains were still strained against the pressure of the zombies. I hesitated, then took the golf club and wandered in a wide circle away from Merle towards the door to survey the chain. Several of the metal links were bending. My presence only drove the beasts to work harder too.

"I think we have a problem." I said, sitting back down, trying to be shaded by the large metal pipe going across the roof. I lit up a cigarette, Merle gave me a longing almost baleful sort of look and I tossed him another one and then the lighter.

"Those things are going to break those chains. I'm sure of it. They're already bending. I don't know how long we have or how many are in there but it looks like a lot. Once they get through though, we're not going to have a lot of time before there's a dozen or more all over this roof…" I admitted.

He took a long drag, and blew out the smoke.

"I hate to say this, but I agree with you, girl. I noticed last night the chain has been getting more and more slack. They're sticking their arms through more than they were when everyone high tailed it outta here without me. When are your damn friends getting back?"

I sighed. I honestly had no idea. I told them to be back by twelve but I had no idea what was happening wherever they were, or honestly, if they had even ever made it to the survivor's camp. How long were we supposed to wait?

"I don't know." I said quietly. We smoked in silence for a little while after that.

"If they're not back by 1, we're going to have to figure something out." I decided finally.

"Then maybe you should grab that damn saw for me so we can start working on these fuckin' cuffs." He complained. I sighed but got up and grabbed the saw. The zombies were pressuring heavily at the chains, I could see them bending under the pressure. I was worried. If it got down to it, I could run off, sure, but to where? And then what? Leave Merle here to be eaten alive while I run off like a coward? No. If it got down to it, I would stay here and fight for as long as I could. I handed him the saw and he began working away at the cuffs.

By noon he had made no progress, and there hadn't been a single car on the road yet. I was getting more concerned. The saw was beginning to dull and the handcuffs showed no sign of wear. We had run down to our last six cigarettes.

I pulled another out and handed it to him. "Take a break. I don't think you're doing anything but wearing down the saw. Those handcuffs are made to withstand this kind of thing, those are the real deal." He took the cigarette and threw the saw at the concrete floor of the roof.

"Fuckin' asshole piece of shit cop! Who the fuck he think he is tyin me to this god DAMN ROOF!"

I wanted to slap him, the things at the door were only getting more and more revved up and the chains were rattling like crazy, itching to break. I lit my own cigarette and got up, walking over to the door. The chain links were definitely bending out of shape. All it took was for one to snap and the whole chain would come undone. I gulped and tried to count how many nasty things I could see inside. There were too many. I couldn't be sure. I looked at the chain again, as they pressured against it.

"We have an hour at best." I said, walking back over to what I had come to think of as my spot.

"Well ain't that just fine and dandy. Your god damn piece of shit friends done left you up here high and dry too, baby girl, so what we gonna do!?"

I sighed. I highly doubt that they had left me but it was becoming an increasing worry that the ambulance had broken down or run out of gas. Maybe they got to the campsite and there was no one there. Or worse yet, maybe they had gotten there and been attacked at night. Maybe they were all dead. I checked my watch again. 12:20

"Twenty-five more minutes. We'll give them that and then we have to find a way to go. We can't stay here and wait for those things to break in and kill us. You're a sitting duck chained up like that and we're both just baking in this sun."

"My baby brother shoulda come for me by now." Merle grumbled, but there was a sad tone to it. I tossed him one more cigarette.

"That's your last one. Make it last." I told him. He tucked it over his ear and saved it. I pulled out my umbrella and decided to chance sitting nearer to him. We hid beneath it's meager shade for half an hour before I went to look at the door again.

The chains were strained to the end, now. They were ready to break. One in particular had stretched wide enough to create a small gap in the metal. I hurried back over to him.

"We have to go. We have to figure something out now. It's nearly one, and we don't have any more time to spare. That chain is going to go or we are." I said hurriedly.

"Well then it looks like we got one option, little girl. You gonna have to cut my hand off."

I gritted my teeth.

"There has to be another way." I growled. I lit a cigarette, began pacing back and forth on the roof, looking onto the street below. No cars. No cars coming from the direction the ambulance had gone off in the day before either. I took drags and exhaled, took drags and exhaled until I was down to the filter. I had nothing. The pipe wasn't going to give any more than the handcuffs were, the saw wasn't even that great of a saw. What was I to do?"

"Come on girl, before I get started on it myself." Merle grumbled.

I gave a frustrated groan and went back to the door. The metal link doing the worst had only gotten pulled wider, the gap between the metal was growing. We didn't have time. We didn't have any fucking time.

"Are you sure?" I asked hurriedly.

"Yes, I'm god damn sure, I ain't gonna be eaten, cut off my damn hand." He said, kicking his feet around in annoyance.

"Fuckin' A…." I grabbed the saw and then looked in the pack of cigarettes. Four left. I stole one and gave him the rest of the pack.

"All yours, darling…hold on tight okay…" He took them gratefully and finally took the one out from behind his ear and lit it up.

"Get goin', _doctor_." He muttered.

"Do you have a handkerchief? A Belt? Something I can use to tourniquet you? It will reduce the pain and the loss of blood."

He loosened his belt and pulled it off. I could hear the chains creaking and I snatched the belt from him and tied it around his forearm, just slightly lower than his elbow, I tied it tight enough for him to hiss in pain and then waited just about a minute.

I pulled the single, lonely bottle of hand sanitizer I had brought in the beach bag out and squeezed out a glob onto the saw, rubbing it down the length of the serrated edge, and then poured more into my hands, rubbing them together profusely. Deciding it wasn't the time to try to conserve, I squeezed another glob onto the saw and rubbed it down once more, and then again on my hands.

"Ready?" I squeaked. I wasn't a surgeon.

"Yes, girl, stop askin' me if I'm fuckin' ready, no one is ready to get their damn arm chopped off, just do it already!" He barked, dragging on his cigarette and pulling another one out to have at the ready.

I tried to psych myself up mentally, and then pushed the handcuff up as far as it would go towards his hand, hoping I could make a clean cut just past the metacarpals. I was shaking. I slapped myself. Now wasn't the time to be shaking, I couldn't afford a fuck up.

"Damn, girl…" He said gruffly, grinning at me.

"Shut up." I muttered and took the saw to his wrist, feeling for the metacarpals and aiming for just below them, hoping to make it in between the bones of the wrist and the radius and ulna. I began sawing. Merle began howling. The things at the door began pressuring more and more at the chains. I felt certain I was going to hear the snap of the chains before I could get through his wrist, so I worked harder, trying to make it go faster and faster.

Merle had stopped howling by this point and is resting his head against the metal pipe line, looking weak, smoking another cigarette.

With a sickening tear, I had finally made it through his wrist. His hand was gone. He was free.

I still needed to stop the bleeding though, even with the tourniquet it was bleeding profusely. I looked around for something to stop it up or tie it off with. The blood was dripping freely onto the ground.

I looked at his face. His eyes were squinted shut; I could see stains down his dirty face where tears must have cut through.

"Hey, do you have a handkerchief or something?" I asked, breaking him from his trance.

He shook his head at me. I popped the last cigarette out of the pack and put it in his mouth, he smirked at me around the cigarette, I lit it for him and then stood up, he looked at his dripping hand and then got to his feet himself. His hand fell out of the handcuff and onto the ground, with a sickening plop.

He was obviously dizzy, he swayed on his feet a little bit.

"Do not look at me like I am anything more than a person trying to help you." I warned him, and then pulled off my t shirt and wrapped it around his stump a few times, he hissed with pain but took it extraordinarily well. I tied it off with my hair tie, even though it now meant having to deal with my long, tangly tresses.

He gave a weak whistle but I saw it more as a weak attempt at humor than him making a pass at me. We stood there for a minute, I lit my own cigarette and stared at the door. There seemed to be surprisingly fewer of them suddenly, we didn't necessarily have to go anywhere now that he was able to move but he seemed antsy to leave.

"This way, baby girl." He said gruffly, but weakly, and lead me to what looked like an electrical work door. His hand was still dripping a small amount of blood through the shirt. I followed him to the door and got beside it, I pulled my beach bag to make it into as nearly a backpack as I could and then got my golf club ready, nodded at him to open up the door and he did, I pulled my golf club back, ready to swing but there was nothing there. I went down first. I was scared. We could run into more at any moment now, we were no longer even slightly safe, we were prone to attack at any second, from any direction, and the darkness of the building was a stark contrast from the blinding sun outside, I could barely even see the steps I was going down.

We reached the ground floor and I could instantly see two.

"Take out that geek." He whispered raspily beside me, I hadn't noticed the wrench he had brought with him from the roof. I puffed one last breath of my cigarette, then put it out and snuck up behind the one he had gestured to. He smashed into the skull of the other one just as I reached striking distance of the one I went for, it turned just in time to see my club coming for it's face.

We ventured through another room and I took out one more, I was too distracted to notice one creeping behind me but Merle took it out and then dropped the wrench. His strength was fading fast, I could tell.

I crept forward, down a hall, and we ran into a kitchen. Perfect!

"I'm sorry, love but we're going to have to cauterize that thing." I said softly to him. "Or you're going to bleed out." He had already soaked through the thin white shirt, and had left a decent trail of drips along the way here. He nodded, looking tired.

I turned the knob on the gas stove, pleasantly surprised to find that it still worked, and then peered around the kitchen for something to use, finding a small cast iron, perfect for the job.

I heated it in the flame for roughly a minute before turning to him and asking if he could pull the shirt off his arm. He grunted agreeably and then proceeded to pull it off, only making little hissing sounds of pain.

When I pressed the burning hot iron to his stump, it was a different story. He couldn't contain his yelp or the steady stream of venomous cuss words that followed. I didn't bother telling him to shut up, I couldn't even fathom the pain he must be in, and it has been scientifically proven that cussing helps relieve pain.

Luckily, no "geeks" come in despite all the noise he was making and then I was done. I hand him a bottle of water.

"You should hydrate." I murmur, but he shoves it away.

"Don't need no fuckin' water. I need revenge, honey." He grumbled at me.

"Revenge?" I asked quietly.

"Damn fuckin' right. No one leaves Merle Dixon chained to a god damn roof and gets away with it. I'm going to go to camp and KILL that god damn cop!"

My eyes were wide. I had reached an impasse.

"I can't support that…" I said finally.

"Oh, so what? Now you gonna leave ol' Merle too, huh? Well fine, fuck you then, whore! I don't need you! Coulda done all this myself!"

How quickly he had changed, I thought. He had seemed so tired and out of it but a minute ago, now here he was revved up, ready to go, he looked ready to punch me in the face.

"Take your nasty ass fuckin shirt back. Fuck you, bitch!" He chucked the bloody tshirt at my face, I tore it away and scowled.

He took a kettle from the counter and smashed the window. Now I was getting angry. He was going to bring every fucking zombie in the neighborhood here with his screaming and breaking things.

He crawled through the window, and I could hear a distinct noise as he dropped onto whatever was below. I didn't bother to peek out after him. I waited until I couldn't hear his grumbling and bitching anymore and then peeked out the window. A fire escape. He hadn't even known it was there, the bastard. He was crazy.

I sighed and sat down on the window ledge with the golf club in hand, ready for more zombies to appear at the door now that he made such a loud fuss. I grabbed the beach bag and ate a bag of chips. Trying to decide what the hell to do with myself. I was alone now. I could try to walk to the camp but, honestly, I was scared. Just go strolling through the zombie infested city, off down a road that would take me god knows where, just hoping to run into a camp full of people I didn't know, who may or may not even be there?

I didn't even have a fucking cigarette to relieve some stress. I almost felt like crying, and to be honest, I almost did cry, until I heard the screaming coming from the roof.

My instinct was to go towards it, this meant that there were new people on the roof now right? Maybe it was Rebecca and Mario and some of the other survivors, they must have finally come. But then the logical side of my brain told me, running to save people screaming on roof tops is what got you into this grand old mess, Reenee, and now you're shirtless, cigarette-less, and stranded alone. I continued to eat my fritos, and waited there. Whoever was up there could come find me. Merle had left a decent enough trail of breadcrumbs, or blood drops, whatever.

Sure enough, not fifteen minutes later, I could hear someone down the hall shouting, "Merle! Merle!"

There was some murmuring after that and I got my golf club ready, moved forward, so I wouldn't be hidden by anything. I wished profusely that I hadn't chosen to wear my rainbow striped bra to work the day all this shit had gone down but there was nothing I could do about it now, and there was no way to fix the blood soaked shirt. I waited. Moments later a figure appeared at the door, face masked by a massive mechanical crossbow, scanning the room. After he saw me, clutching my golf club, standing there, wide eyed, he lowered his weapon. Three more men filed into the room after him.

I gulped, feeling unsure. Neither Rebecca nor Mario was with them, and now I was alone and shirtless surrounded by gruff looking men with guns and crossbows, I was more terrified of this situation than I was of the hundreds of zombies that had chased me through the hospital. I would rather die than be raped.

"You seen my brother?" The first one asked me, rudely.

How is that for a hello?

"Merle?" I asked, trying to sound confident but my voice came out as barely a squeak. The man took a step towards me, whether to hear me better or because I had peaked his interest, I wasn't sure.

"Yeah, you seen him?" He asked again, there was still no air of friendliness to him. I took a step back, and didn't lower my golf club.

The second man who had entered was wearing a sheriff's uniform. I nearly laughed. I felt obligated to warn him that a very weak man, ready to pass out from blood loss and dehydration was seeking to extract vengeance on him.

"Are you Renee?" The man in the Sheriff uniform asked, he at least seemed friendlier. He came nearer to me, I tried to take a step back but I had reached the wall. He stopped moving and put a hand up like I had a gun pointed at him. "We're not here to hurt you. I'm Sheriff Rick Grimes, your friends Mario and Rebecca made it to our camp yesterday, they told us that you were going to stay with Merle and wait for us to come uncuff him."

My face lit up. They had made it. They were okay. I huffed in disbelief and lowered the golf club. I smiled a little bit and used my now free left hand to push back some of mass of tangled brown hair.

"I can't believe they made it." I admitted, smiling more, and then I shook my head, "I'm sorry, I forgot myself I just...I'm so happy they're okay. I'm Ree-knee, actually, not Renee, and-"

"Good for you, where the hells my brother!?" The other one snarled at me. I back into the wall, raising the golf club again, my eyes are wide. They're definitely brothers, that's for sure. Hot headed, nuttos, ready to attack.

"Daryl, CALM DOWN." Rick said, turning to face him and talking as though he was speaking to a child.

"Your brother and I decided we couldn't stay on the roof anymore." I admitted, "We didn't know if Rebecca and Mario had made it to you guys, and we didn't know if anyone was coming for us. The chain holding the door was breaking apart and we couldn't stay there, waiting to be…eaten. Your brother decided to cut off his hand and…well I helped him. I'm a doctor. Once we had severed it, we came down here and we actually just cauterized it, maybe fifteen minutes ago? As soon as we did, he threw a fit, saying he was going to kill you." I gestured to Rick. "He said he wanted revenge and was going to kill you. I told him I would have no part in that and then he broke this window and shimmied down the fire escape like an idiot."

"We gotta go after 'im." Merle's brother, Daryl, apparently, said immediately and began charging towards the window, I scooted toward the hall to my left, out of his way but Rick grabbed him.

"Daryl, no. Use your head. We can't just go charging down there after him, we can help you search a span of a few blocks, he can't have gotten far right?" He looked to me for confirmation, I nodded, frowning at him, "We just have to be calm. Can you do that?"

Daryl nodded, but looked less than calm. "I can do that."

We looked around the room at each other for a moment, finally the small Asian kid came up to me, he couldn't be any older than 24/25. He extended a hand and smiled kindly, "I'm Glenn."

I smiled back. It was nice to see some humanity left in the world after spending so much time with Merle and now encountering his crazy brother. "Reenee. It's nice to meet you."

"Yeah, yeah, c'mon already." Daryl grumbled, and turned towards the hall I was standing in, "Why ain't you got a damn shirt on?"

I wrinkled my nose and frowned at him, "Seriously? Your brother was bleeding all over the place, it was my shirt or this bag, and quite frankly this bag serves more of a purpose."

"Oh." He muttered. "Thanks for helpin' him cut his fuckin' hand off, Iguess." He grumbled and then made his way down the hall.

"Yeah, he's always like this." Glenn answered the question I hadn't asked aloud and I grinned at him, he grinned back before following Daryl down the hall. The last man, a larger, African American man, came up to me then, and extended his hand. "T-Dog." He said and bobbed his head at me. "Reenee, I'm sure you've heard by now. It's nice to meet you." I said quietly, he wasn't doing a very good job of avoiding staring at my breasts, and it was getting old, even if I understood how awkward the situation probably was for him. He stood there awkwardly for a moment and then followed Glenn.

"Go ahead." Rick told me, I felt uncomfortable having someone who I barely knew, holding a gun, walking behind me but Rebecca had trusted him, I would have to as well. It was better than sitting there by myself wondering what the hell to do. I moved forward and we made it to what appeared to be some sort of office.

"Okay, I gotta say. I'm not willing to go strollin through these city streets with nothing but wishful thinking. If we're gonna look for Merle, we need to go get those guns first." T-Dog said, looking apologetic but honest.

Glenn nodded his head. Daryl looked between the two of them annoyed and then back at me, and then quickly away. I sighed. I needed a god damn shirt.

"I have a plan." Glenn finally piped up, breaking the silence. He pulled a white board down from the wall of the room and began to draw.

**A/N:**** Extremely long chapter was extremely long! This is nearly 10,000 words! Holy crap, I'm sorry but I didn't want to go back on my promises and hey look! Daryl was in this chapter! For a good few paragraphs xD Haha sorry I'm so sorry. Please please review and thank you so much for reading, the next chapter will be normal size, roughly 4,000 words again, especially now that she's gotten to the group! Thank you again for reading!**


	5. Chapter 5

**Hi, thank you for reading! If you are enjoying this story, I ask you to please review because I am sort of losing hope that anyone likes it, and am considering discontinuing and deleting. **

**IF anyone reading this story is a fan of my other story Unwell, I am also probably going to rewrite Unwell! Fix the spelling/grammar/pronoun errors, add some things, and make it longer and more complete. I am in love with that story, my favorite thing, although not necessarily the best thing, I've ever written. Thanks again for reading, and please please review if you like it!**

Daryl and Glenn moved quickly down the alley way, ducking behind dumpsters on their way to the streets, I creeped along a few feet behind them. When Glenn went out the gate, we watched him for a minute until he was down the street and out of our line of sight to get the bag of guns Rick had apparently dropped when he first made it to Atlanta and was swarmed by zombies.

Daryl still has his cross bow at the ready, I had my golf club raised and ready to go as well. Once we couldn't see Glenn anymore Daryl turned around and we noticed a young looking boy coming up the alley way behind us. I was startled and moved backwards, running into the dumpster, Daryl immediately moved forward, pointing his crossbow at his head and the boy backed up, holding his hands in front of him.

"Woah, no! Don't shoot me! What do you want!? What do you want!?" He exclaimed, frightened.

"I'm lookin' for my brother, he's hurt real bad, you seen him?" Daryl growled at the boy, crossbow still in his face, he was pretty terrifying, even to me.

"Ayudame!" the boy yelled suddenly, my eyes went wide and I moved forward then, "Shut up!" I hissed.

"Quiet! You're gonna bring the geeks down on us! Answer me!" Daryl growled, moving ever closer with his crossbow. I wanted to slap my own forehead in frustration, he was only scaring him more.

"Ayudame! Ayudame!" The boy yelled louder and louder.

"Shut up! Shut up!" Daryl yelled and clamped his free hand over the boy's mouth and wrestled him down , I moved forward but then there were two much larger men shooting down the alley way from the gate Glenn had left through just moments earlier. I didn't know what to do, every bit of my body screamed at me to just run but run where? Into the arms of the zombies? The men were immediately upon Daryl, kicking him and hitting him with a baseball bat so I had to do something then, I moved forward and swung the golf club at the one with the bat, aiming for his leg, to injure, not kill. He was human. I couldn't do any more than that.

He hissed out in pain and fell onto the floor, and that's when they noticed Glenn. I wouldn't even have noticed Glenn but the other man yelled "There it is! The bag of guns! Grab it, vato! Grab it!" And the injured one came forward, shoved Glenn to the ground and I went to take another swing at him with the golf club but the other one rushed me and slammed me against the brick wall of the alley way. I lost vision for a moment and felt myself sliding down the wall. "Could I be anymore useless…" Was all I could think and sure, I could, by staying down so I got back up and grabbed for the golf club but they already had the bag and something bright went whizzing past me, landing itself straight in one man's buttcheek. I looked, Daryl was on his knees, reloading his crossbow, the man who hadn't been shot grabbed Glenn into a choke hold and pulled him in front of him as a safety. I moved forward with my golf club, I could still hit the other one at least, but then a white car pulled up and people inside it were screaming to get on, and they were moving backwards with the injured man behind the man with Glenn and I grabbed for Glenn grabbed his hand and held on to it, trying to at least buy time, but they pulled him away and then I was hit with something and I went down again.

Everything was black, I closed my eyes to stop the dizzying effect of not being able to see and I could hear the car screeching away and then Daryl screaming "COME BACK HERE YOU SUMBITCHES!" And then the squeaking of the gate being pulled up, I could hear foot steps pattering up the alley way and then Daryl's yelling as I could hear him slam the poor kid up against the brick. "Daryl! Whoa! Stop it!" Rick this time, and then again, "I'm gonna kick your nuts up in your throat!" Daryl was yelling, "They took Glenn! That little bastard and his bastard homie friends! I'm gonna stomp your ass!" He was screaming.

I opened my eyes, the world was spinning but I forced myself to get up.

"Daryl, no!" Rick was pushing Daryl away from him.

"We're cut off! T-Dog yelled and everything was still spinning for me, "Back to the lab! Go!" Rick yelled, and picked up the bag of guns and his Sheriff's hat that Glenn had apparently also gotten back for him. They started running and I took off after them, trying to keep up even though I couldn't be more disoriented if I was upside down in an elevator on a boat. I ran into a dumpster and then, rough hands were grabbing my bare shoulders, redirecting me in the right direction, "C'MON, already, damn!" It was Daryl so I shrugged his hands off of me and then he took off running and I was able to follow him by looking at the back of his disgusting shirt and nothing else.

I took a seat on a desk as soon as we got in there, fumbled around for some kind of reflective surface other than my bloodied up golf club. I couldn't see straight. I was dizzy, I felt tired. These weren't good signs. They were indicative of a concussion.  
>"Who are you?" T-Dog growled at the boy.<p>

"We need to know where your friends went." Rick said calmly.

"I ain't tellin' you nothin'!" The boy spat out and T-Dog shook his head. "Man, what the hell happened back there!?" He turned to look at Daryl who had been pacing the room since we got back.

"I told you! This little turd and his douchebag friends came out of nowhere and jumped me!"

"You're the one who jumped me puto!" The boy exclaimed, "Screaming about trying to find your brother like it's my damn fault."

"They took Glenn! They might have taken Merle too!" Daryl yelled, frustrated. I wanted them all to be quiet, my head was pounding. I got up quietly and went for the door that led to the kitchen, they were yelling again and they didn't even notice me. I was surprised Daryl realized I was spinning out in the alley and they all hadn't just run off without me.

I wandered through the kitchen and closed the door that man and I had come through just a few hours before. I walked the layout of the kitchen once with my golf club at the ready, just to be sure I was alone and then I went about scouting the kitchen for a mirror. I found a small compact in a purse in what looked to be a little coat closet, probably for the workers. It felt wrong going through someone's things like that, but I needed to check myself.

My eyeliner was pretty runny, but not terrible, I fixed it but it wasn't my concern. I slid my phone out of my jegging pocket and powered it on. It was down to 17%, I frowned but used the flashlight on it to shine it into my eyes. No contraction. I shut the light off. No dilation. I felt dizzy and sick.

"Son of a bitch…" I muttered to myself.

"Sonbitch what?" the strongly accented voice came from the other side of the kitchen and I startled, dropping my phone. The clattering noise of the phone made me wince and he came around the counter and got near me.

"We're tryin'a make a plan to get Glenn back, we need you in there if you gonna be a part of it." He ushered. I nodded, stooping to pick up my phone and feeling like I was going to throw up in the process.

I retrieved the phone and then leaned against the counter for a minute.

He was frowning at me and chewing the inside of his cheek.

"You kay?" He asked after an unknown amount of time had passed.

"I think I have a concussion." I wanted to tell him, but I was pretty sure he would just scoff at me and be annoyed so I just swallowed the lump in my throat and nodded. He stared at me for a while longer, his eyes flashed down to my chest and then immediately back up to my face like he had forgotten he wasn't allowed to look there. I looked down at myself, I had forgotten I didn't have a shirt.

"How did I lose my shirt?.." I mumbled, and he raised an eyebrow, looked at me sort of bewildered.

"You don't 'member?" He asked and I cringe away from his loud voice and stupid backwoods accent. I shook my head. I wanted to lie down.

"C'mere." He said gruffly and turned me by the shoulders and lead me back to the room where the others were, they all looked at me.

"You're bleeding." Rick noticed suddenly and came towards me.

"Why you got this naked girl here, puto, what kind of people are you?" The boy taunted. Daryl went for him immediately, "You'd best shut your damn mouth, you know what's good for you! Don't lookit her!" he snarled, slapping the boy across the face harshly. I frowned.

"Are you okay?" Rick asked slowly, he was directly in front of me, looking in my eyes, checking out the blood drying on the side of my face.

"You're a police officer aren't you?" I asked slowly. I felt dumb.

He nodded, "I'm a sheriff. Are you okay, Reenee?"

"I'm a doctor." I supplied. He stared at me.

"I think I'm concussed." I added, and gave a small shrug. "I'm okay though."

He frowned at me. "Well, you don't seem okay, to tell you the truth." He lead me over to a chair sitting against the window. The light filtering in was bright and it hurt my eyes. I kind of wanted to ask him if I could wear his shirt since it was clear he had another white tshirt on beneath his Sheriff uniform but I felt like it gave him authority, so I just sat there, half naked, feeling exposed, surrounded by men I didn't really know, disoriented and confused, tired and nauseous while they babbled about a plan to go get Glenn back.

"What do I do?" I asked finally.

Daryl snorted. "You stayin' here."

"What!? You can't leave me here!" I said annoyed, getting out of my seat and trying to pretend I didn't feel like I had just gotten on an escalator.

"I'm sorry to do this to you but Daryl is right, you should stay here." Rick said, calmly, looking down at me. I sighed.

"What if I fall asleep? I'll die. I need to be around other people and I need to be awake."

"That's a myth." Daryl muttered, rolling his eyes at me.

I rolled my eyes back. "It's not a myth, it's very true that you could fall asleep and simply never wake back up, just the majority of the time concussions aren't that bad. I'm a little concerned since my pupils aren't contracting correctly though and I was hit over the head with a fucking baseball bat." I shot back.

"She shouldn't come." Daryl reiterated, turning to talk to Rick since apparently I was a lost cause.

Rick looked torn.

"You really think you're feeling up to it?" Rick asked me finally.

"Yes!" I gave a frustrated sigh. He put up his hands in a gesture of innocence and nodded at me. "Okay, okay, you can come." He said and tossed me hand gun that I nearly didn't catch.

"You really gonna let her come!?" Daryl growled at Rick, "She barely even made it out of that alley way!"

This was true but the dizziness had been much much worse than.

"I think she should come." The boy said and Daryl kicked his chair over.

"What'd I tell you, punk!?" He pulled his fist back and I caught it.

"Stop." I whispered. He gave me a hard stare down and then retracted his fist.

"You're lucky there's a lady here." He spat at the boy.

"Am I ever." The boy said, looking me up and down.

Daryl punched him after that and I didn't bother to even try to stop him.

We arrived at a little hole in the wall, literally. A hole in a brick wall leading to the back entrance of a large building. T-Dog headed up to the roof to have a vantage point and the rest of us went straight up to the door.

"One wrong move, you get an arrow in the ass, just so you know." Daryl said gruffly. I snickered.

"G's gonna take that arrow and shove it up your ass. Just so you know." The boy retorted.

"G?" Rick asked, still one of the few here with sense.

"Guillermo. He's the man here."

A Mexican man with no weapon and several others with various weapons came out of the heavy mechanical doors.

He sauntered up to us. "They're gonna cut off my feet!" The boy whined. My eyes went wide and I looked at Daryl, he glanced at me and shrugged, turned his attention back to the next man who came out of the door. "There he is there's that puto that shot an arrow in my ass!" He yelled, cocking his hand gun. "And this bitch hit me with a god damn golf club!"

"All we want is a calm discussion." Rick said.

"Chill, ese, chill, chill." The man in the middle said. "Is this true? This redneck wants to cut off Miguelito's feet? That's pretty sick. He jumps Felipe's little cousin, beats on him and then Felipe gets an arrow in the ass? And you want a calm discussion? You fascinate me." The boy had said this man was Guillermo.

"Heat of the moment. Mistakes were made on both sides." Rick replied, remaining calm, confident and collected.

"Who's this dude to you anyways?" Guillermo asked then, "You don't look related."

"He's one of our group, more or less. I'm sure you've got some like him." Rick said.

"And this pretty putana?" The man asked, eyeing me. I bared my teeth at him, and cocked my handgun. Daryl took a half step forward.

Rick put a hand back to calm him.

"Again, she's a part of our group."

"You got my brother in there?" Daryl asked suddenly, I had forgotten. His brother. What was his name…

"Sorry, we're fresh out of white boys. But I got Asian. You interested?" The man teased.

"I have one of yours, you have one of mine. Sounds like an even trade."

"Don't sound even to me. My people got attacked. Where is the compensation for their pain and suffering? More importantly. Where is my bag of guns?" The man asked.

"It's my bag of guns." Rick retorted, still calm as ever.

"It was sitting in the middle of the street, anyone could walk up and say it was there's."

"Are you serious?" I asked, annoyed, "It says KCPD on it and he's wearing a damn Sheriff uniform. I'm sure you can tell just talking to him he's a fucking cop."

Daryl glanced back at me, looking a little surprised but then immediately refocused on the people in front of him.

"Whatever, puta, what's to stop my people from unloading on you right here and now and I take what's mine?" He continued.

There were several more men standing at the door, with weapons, ready to go.

"You could do that. Or not." Rick said, gesturing up towards the rooftop where T-Dog could be seen with a sniper rifle.

The man said something in Spanish, maybe a name, and several men appeared, pushing Glenn towards the edge of the roof of the building that these men were camped out in. I gasped, "Glenn!" I yelped, he looked terrified, a fat strip of duct tape covered his mouth, his hands were bound behind him.

"I see two options. You come back with Miguel and my bag of guns, everybody walks. Or you come back locked and loaded and we see which side spills more blood." He said, he smirked, and he and his cronies walked back inside. I looked back up at the roof but Glenn was already gone, as were the men who were pushing him. I felt like crying.

We headed back to the room we had turned into our base of operations at the moment and I laid down on the table, tried to ignore the boy staring at me. A nasty screeching noise that seemed to rip through my brain leaving searing pain made me sit back up and look and I saw Daryl turning the kids chair around to the wall.

"I catch you lookin' at her one more time and I'll knock you out, PUTO." Daryl growled at him and the boy stayed staring at the wall after that. I smiled at Daryl, he looked at me but then looked away again immediately. I sighed. I needed a damn shirt.

"Guns are worth more than gold." Daryl said seriously to Rick. "Gold won't keep your family safe or put food on the table. You willing to give that up for that kid?"

I frowned at the way he said "that kid", like Glenn was nameless, easily forgotten. I sat back up slowly, "I am." I said easily. "Not that it's my call to make." I added. Rick looked at me.

"If I knew that we were going to get Glenn back I would agree with you." T-Dog said, "But you really think that Vato across the way is just going to hand him over?"

"You callin' G a liar?" The boy piped up and Daryl went to him and slapped him, "You a part of this!? You want to keep your teeth!?"

I couldn't help but giggle and Daryl glanced at me, I would swear he blushed but he would probably swear he didn't.

"Question is, do you trust that man's word?" T-Dog finished.

"No, question is how much you willin' to bet on it? Could be more than them guns, could be your life." Daryl said, "Glenn worth that much to you?" He asked.

"What life I do have, I owe to Glenn." Rick said. "I was nobody to him, just some idiot stuck in a tank. He could have walked away but he didn't. Neither will I."

"So you're gonna hand the guns over?" Daryl asked, rather quietly for him.

"I didn't say that." Rick said. Daryl raised his eyebrows, interested.

"There's nothing keeping you three here. You should get out, head back to camp."

"And tell your family what?" T-Dog asked.

Daryl hesitated for a moment and then took one of the pump-action shotguns from the bag, T-Dog moved forward to grab his own weapon as well. I scooted off the desk and peered into the bag.

"Come on, this is nuts!" The boy said, starting to get up, Daryl pushed him back down into the chair.

"Thank God." I muttered, finding another handgun and two holsters. I strapped them securely to my jeggings and slipped the guns inside them.

"If only there was a damn shirt in there." Daryl huffed and I laughed, I had been thinking the same thing.

They loaded their weapons and we walked back to their building, Daryl at the front of the pack, gun tightly trained on our little prisoner. They let us into the building and we were immediately surrounded by more than twenty men, easily.

"I see my guns." Guillermo said, sauntering up to us confidently. I would be confident too if I had as many homies watching my back as he did. "But they're not all in the bag."

"They're not your guns. I thought I mentioned that." Rick said menacingly.

"Let's just shoot these fools right now." His friend Felipe tells him.

I stopped paying too much attention after that, it was just male intimidation bullshit, Guillermo said something about feeding Glenn to dogs he got from Satan's yard sale and I rolled my eyes.

"You said come locked and loaded." Rick said finally, I heard that, "Okay then, we're here."

He cocked his gun, I drew out my other hand gun, cocked that one too, aimed at two different men behind Daryl, I felt he would protect my front as long as I covered his ass.

There's the sound of at least ten other guns in the room being cocked and my heart began to pound, suddenly a voice cried out, "Felipe! Felipe!" An old woman appeared from behind the croud of surly Mexican men and comes forward, towards the action, I have the strong urge to drop my guns and pretend I was never holding them in the first place.

The one called Felipe, answered her, "Abuela, get out of here go back with the others, now!" he shouted.

"Get that old lady out of the line of fire!" Daryl shouted, and I couldn't help myself from grinning, even in this dire situation he had some odd moral code to him.

"Abuela, listen to your mijo, okay, this is not the place for you right now." Guillermo said sternly.

"Mr. Gilbert is having trouble breathing. He needs his asthma stuff. Carlito didn't find it. He needs his medicine." She said panicked.

Guillermo looked torn, and then finally, "Felipe go take care of it! And take your grandmother with you!"

Felipe began speaking in Spanish but the old woman who was apparently his grandmother ignored it.

"Who are these men? Don't take him!" she said suddenly, walking up to Rick. "He is a good boy! He helps us."

Rick looked confused and then a little embarrassed.

"Ma'am, I'm not here to arrest your grandson." He said softly. I giggled in spite of myself. Daryl shot me a dirty look.

"Then what do you want him for?" She asked.

"He's…helping us find a missing person. A fella named Glenn." Rick said.

"The Asian boy? Ah yes, come come he's with . Come, I show you. He needs his medicine." She said kindly, and led Rick by the hand through the back of the warehouse, the rest of us followed. She led us into what was clearly a rest home. We passed a few rooms with some health care providers still there, helping the elderly.

I put my guns away.

We finally found Glenn and a few other elderly people. "What the hell is this?" Rick asked, annoyed.

"An asthma attacked." Glenn answered, standing there looking concerned about the old man wheezing in his wheelchair, but other than that, completely fine.

"We thought you were being eaten by dogs!" T-Dog hissed at him.

Glenn looked to the little chihuahuas on their dog bed in the corner. The yipped and Rick shook his head, pulled Guillermo to the side, "You are the stupidest son of a bitch, I have ever met." I heard him hiss, and I giggled but I didn't hear much more after that until he went into a side room and we all followed.

Rick asked him a few questions and Guillermo answered, they're just trying to protect the old people, keep them safe and well since they were abandoned. They had run into a few bad characters since the world fell apart, and had to do everything they could to protect them.

Rick listened, and understood, and then eventually, passed Guillermo his gun. He took a few more guns out of the bag and handed them over and then we left with Glenn.

We headed in a tight group back to where they had parked the van they came in and Daryl complains loudly about how dumb it was to give up half the guns to "some old farts who only gonna die anyway". I laughed at him and Glenn grinned at me but the slight good mood in the air came to a halt when we approached a chain link fence and they all stopped. I stopped too, unsure.

"Oh my god." Glenn whispered, his smile had fallen completely.

"Who the hell too our van?" Daryl asked, annoyed.

"Merle." Rick supplied, instantly.

Daryl looked worried and kind of embarrassed, "He's going to be bringing some vengeance back to camp."

"We have to go. Hurry, jog, now!" Rick commanded and we all began jogging alongside one another. I checked my watch. 4:30 PM. The sun would be going down in an hour. I wish I knew just how far this camp site was. I would be fine for three, maybe even five miles but after that? I would just have to deal with it, I supposed, and jogged along them, listening to the huffs of my breathing and everyone elses.

It was completely dark when we heard the first gunshot. My eyes shot wide, I panicked, I drew out my guns and sped up, Rick and I fought for the front of the pack, neck and neck. I could see the fire up just a short ways in the distance. I could also hear people screaming now, and the definite growling of the zombies. I rushed forward.

"Rebecca!" I shrieked. Surrounded by strange people, flying around me in every which way, and then zombies, zombies everywhere, I wasn't able to seek through the darkness to find her. I got right in the middle of the mix and began shooting as many of the dead things as I could. Someone behind me was ushering people into an RV. There was a sudden growl from right behind me but the zombie fell to the ground before I could even turn to look at it, an arrow sticking out of the back of it's head.

"Watch your ass!" Daryl yelled at me.

"Watch it for me!?" I yelled back but he made no reply, I kept shooting and kept shooting until one of my handguns ran out and then I dropped it to the ground, put both hands on my remaining hand gun and continued taking them down. There were so many. I killed all the ones streaming for my front and then turned to "watch my ass" and saw one heading straight for Daryl's back, he was reloading his shotgun, and I shot it directly in the head.

"We're even!" I shouted to him as he noticed the fallen creature behind him and roughly ten shots later, it was over.

I was trying to catch my breath but at the same time I was trying to desperately to find Rebecca. I was surrounded by unfamiliar faces. "AMY!" A voice is crying, I could see the woman it belonged to sobbing desperately, clinging to a girl's dead body. I cringed.

"REBECCA!" I called out and suddenly the woman is there, tackling me from the side. I nearly shot her.

"Jesus Christ, Ree! I thought you weren't going to make it, Oh, Ree, I'm so glad, I'm so…." She stopped and trailed off, moved off of me.

"Rebecca?" I asked softly.

I was aware there were eyes on us but I don't bother to turn to see who in the group is staring.

She stayed quiet.

"Rebecca, WHAT IS IT?" I had grown impatient and flustered, she was scaring me, "WHAT'S WRONG? Are you bitten!?" I grabbed her shoulders and stared into her big, blue eyes.

"It's Mario." She sobbed out suddenly. I gasped. I shook my head at her and she choked out another sob.

"No." I said. She sobbed again and nodded.

"Rebecca, no!" I shouted, there was no way, it wasn't possible there was no way, there had to be some mistake, "He's dead!" She sobbed out and then she was shaking, and crying and I couldn't contain myself anymore. I held onto her and we both sunk to the ground, I began crying and crying and I couldn't seem to stop. I could hardly even hear my sobs over the sound of Rebecca's or the woman crying over the Amy girl.

We stayed collapsed in that heap, sobbing into each other until morning came, Rebecca had fallen asleep in my arms at some point well after midnight but I hadn't been able to. Neither had a lot of the people in the camp.

Once there was daylight, the men went to work cleaning up the collection of bodies lying all over the camp. Daryl was using a pickaxe and grotesquely beating all the already dead walkers in the head, just in case. It was an awful noise to hear over and over and over and over again.

Glenn and T-Dog moved the bodies into a big fire. I eventually got up, lying Rebecca down on the ground. I stretched out my legs, they were so dead from the lack of movement and the awkward position I had spent the night in that they almost buckled beneath my weight. I saw Daryl going for Mario's body and I managed to run to him.

"No." I stopped him. "No. I'll do it. He was….he was my friend." I said and with that there were fresh tears streaming down my face. I took the pickaxe from him and looked into my friend's face one more time. Daryl walked away to help a man move a body to the fire, and I could hear Glenn yelling at him a moment later, that the people don't burn with the zombies, "Our people go in that row over there!" I heard him say.

I closed my eyes, inhaled deeply and then I smashed the pickaxe through Mario's forehead. I let out a weak, pathetic little sob and walked away from him, begging his forgiveness under my breath. I could hear Daryl yelling then about how the camp deserved this for leaving his brother for dead.

I went after him immediately, "Did I deserve this!? Did Mario deserve this!? You shut up! We didn't even know your stupid brother and we went to help him, _I_ went to help him! I should have been here! I could have saved him! And for what!? Your asshole brother to call me a whore and a bitch after I did all I fucking could to help him!? FUCK YOU!" I screamed and raised a fist to him, I went to punch but then faltered. He never moved away or went to block, grab my arm, shove me away, nothing. He just flinched and waited.

I couldn't do it.

I sank to the ground again right there and just sobbed for a moment, buried my head in my knees. He didn't move, he just stood there, I couldn't tell you what he looked like, I have no idea, but he stayed there until I heard a woman screaming, "A walker got him! A walker bit Jim!"

I looked up and he was quickly heading over, he grabbed the pick axe, ripped it from my head's skull with a sickening tearing sound and ran towards the man who was bitten. I got to my feet and wiped my eyes with my forearm, the least filthy part of me at the moment and then ran towards the man as well.

"Show it to us!" Daryl demanded and the man, Jim, grabbed a shovel and began swinging it around in defense. I could hardly blame him. The way we had all flocked over to stare at him, the way the woman had shouted he was bitten and ostracized him in such a way in the first place. He was terrified.

T-Dog grabbed him from behind and Daryl ran up and lifted his shirt, there was a large bite mark on the middle of his abdomen. T-Dog and a black woman whose name I didn't know led Jim to the back of the RV. I noticed the girl from last night was still hunched over her dead friend? Sister, by the looks of it. She was bitten. She would get back up. I was extremely surprised she hadn't already.

"I say we put a pick axe through his head and the dead girls and be done with this!" Daryl shouted. I couldn't stand the discussion. I went to the ambulance and opened the back, cleared out a space and put down some of the bedding we had and then went to where I had left Rebecca, who was, remarkably, still sleeping and lifted her easily and carried her to the ambulance. I was only 5'3, Rebecca was maybe 5'4 and thinner, less muscled than me. She was fairly light, couldn't be more than 125, and I had carried her plenty of times before. I laid her in the back of the ambulance on the bedding and watched her sleep for a while. I could hear more arguing from the people in the campsite and began to cry. What was I supposed to do? Stay with this group? This broken group that couldn't defend themselves? I looked down at the hand gun Rick had given me, I wasn't exactly good with guns, but I had dealt with hand guns a few times. I had wanted to own one but never got around to it. I checked the clip. Four shots were left. I sobbed again when suddenly Rebecca sat up in one tense movement. I turned to look at her, through my teary eyes and she was grabbing me, for a hug, I thought.

I opened my arms to her until I heard the raspy awful wheezing sound of something less than human and I back away, I blink rapidly to clear my eyes and I can see the awful yellowish color hers have turned, I can see her mouth gaping wide open at me, her mouth is drooling out blood and I hop out of the ambulance, hitting the ground at an awkward angle, and I fell over instantly, crashing into the dirt and then she's right there, crash landed on the ground just a foot away from me.

I let out a high pitch scream and feel around the holster for my gun, but no I had taken it out in the ambulance it was still up there. I tried to push myself up but she was crawling towards me, I pushed myself away and slid along the dirt, trying to get away from her. I screamed again and it ended in a choked out sob.

"NO! NOOO!" I screamed. And then a pickaxe appeared from seemingly nowhere and smashed her head into the ground. The back of her head looked exactly like the pumpkins we would leave on the porch on Halloween by the next morning, after the asshole neighbor kids had stomped them into nothing. I sobbed.

"REBECCA!" I screeched. "HOW. WHY DIDN'T YOU. REBECCAAAAAAAAA!" I sobbed and my head went down near hers, I tried desperately to turn her over but the pick axe was still pinning her to the ground.

"REBECCaaaa" I groaned. I sobbed into the back of her shirt. I cried and cried, hysterically. I kept saying her name. I kept saying her name even though I knew she was gone. How could she be gone? When had she been bitten? How? She never said-

I could hear the voices of the others around me now, I had heard a gunshot just a moment ago and the logical part of my brain that was still working told me it had to be that girls sister but I didn't care, nothing mattered and I didn't care. I had no one. I had absolutely no one. I sobbed on top of her body for a long time before I felt something prodding my back. I turned to look finally and it was Daryl. Prodding at me with the tip of his boot. I stared up at him.

"They're buryin' em now. Figured you might wanna.." he made a noncommittal gesture and noise. I squeezed my eyes shut. I nodded at him and then I heard him walk away. I sobbed into her shirt again for a moment and then lifted my head, squeezed my eyes closed and tried to regain composure. I considered stealing her shirt off of her, since I still didn't have one but then decide that I would rather her be buried in a dignified manner. It would be wrong of me to steal her clothing off of her. Why, of all the things we had packed, did we not pack clothing? Oh, that's right, we were too busy trying to fill up the ambulance with as much food as possible so that all of us could survive, I'm so glad we did that. I choked out a little sob at the thought.

I shook my head and got to my feet, shakily. I grabbed the handgun and tucked it back into it's holster. I heard footsteps approaching behind me and turned to see my favorite nutjob asshole's hillybilly brother once again. "Would you please take that thing out?" I asked him quietly, gesturing to the pickaxe. My voice was no more than a whimper.

He stared at me for a moment and then gave a brief nod, he grabbed the handle of the pick axe and pulled it out of her head, and I don't think I'll ever forget the noise it made.

"Thank you." I whispered to him and he just nodded again and then stalked off somewhere.

I picked up Rebecca's body. I left her face down like that, I didn't want to see the grotesque thing she had become, and I carried her up the hill. I got a little more than half way before I couldn't go any further, I had to stop. I put her body down and fell to my knees. Instantly, Daryl was there, lifting her body for me and grunting at me to "C'mon." I realized he must have been right behind me the whole time, watching me struggle to carry her body on my own.

I wanted to tell him that I could do it but I couldn't and I knew it and he knew it.

When we got to the top there was a space for Rebecca. I wondered who had dug it but I was sure I knew. Mario was already in a grave and I stared at them. I stared at them in disbelief. I didn't think I would ever have to see them like that. Mario's face, upturned, grotesque, turned into one of those things he hated so much. Rebecca….

Rebecca…

I took a shovel from someone and covered her beautiful body with dirt. Never again would I see those blonde tresses, or look into those beautiful blue eyes. Never again would her optimism or moral guidance light my selfish path. I cried the entire time.

I barely remember going back down the slope to the ambulance but I did. I went down there and I went into the back and I shut the doors and no, I no longer cried but I slept. I slept without a care in the world. I could wake up surrounded by "walkers" and it wouldn't matter. Nothing mattered anymore.

I woke to a banging on the ambulance door. I startled, reached for the gun, found it aimed it at the door. The door opened and there was Daryl, looking taken aback. I set the gun back down but he still looked rather freaked out. I looked down at myself, still in only the bra but yes, I saw then that my breasts were practically popping out of the cups. I wasn't used to sleeping in a bra. I couldn't have cared less. I didn't care at all.

"Uhhh." He started.

I sighed and pulled the sheet I was lying beneath up over my chest so he could at least say whatever he came here to say.

"They talkin' about going to the CDC tomorrow. They think that's our best shot. So….If you comin'…we leavin' at sunrise…"He said finally.

I nodded my head. The CDC. I had forgotten. That was our plan originally. I felt like crying again, but if I was going to cry, I was going to wait until he left.

"So…you goin?" He asked, trying to look casual but just looking sort of sketchy.

I gave a bitter little laugh and he stared at me. "To be honest. I'm probably going to wait until later tonight and then sneak out into the forest and shoot myself."I whispered confidentially.

His eyes widened a bit, he chewed at the inside of his cheek, looking like he was chewing spitting tobacco which reminded me suddenly. I gasped and made a dive for one of the boxes. He took a step back but stayed there, watching me.

I dug around for the appropriate box and then found it, a large cardboard box filled with nothing but packs of cigarettes. Because I hadn't packed clothes but I would be damned if I didn't rob that store of every last pack of cigarettes that was in there.

I pulled on out and then found a lighter pack as well and began packing them. He snorted at me suddenly and stole the pack. I nearly slapped him but he pulled away from me, as though he could sense it. "Pack like a girl." He said and I huffed in disbelief. He packed the cigarettes and then gave them back to me and then hovered there.

"I take it you want one now." I sighed at him.

"Please?"

I mock gasped at him, "I didn't know you knew how to be polite!" I mocked and he rolled his eyes at me. "C'mon, not like they easy to come by anymore." He complained.

"No shit. Your brother smoked half my last pack when I was sawing his stupid hand off, that bastard." Daryl looked away sort of embarrassed and I tore open the pack and handed him one.

"Thanks." He muttered and popped it into his mouth. I flicked the lighter and he leaned forward so I could light his cigarette for him. I went to light my own but then hmmmed and stacked one of the boxes on top of the other so I could open the sliding panel on the roof of the ambulance and crawl through to the top. To my surprise, he followed me.

"You don't have to stick around just because I gave you one, you know." I told him. He took a drag and then said, "You didn't have to give me one."

"Well I'm not going to give you any more if that's why you're trying to be friendly." I retorted.

He looked uncomfortable and then slipped down back into the ambulance and then I could see him retreating back to his tent. I sighed. My whole life's story.

A few moments later I felt the ambulance go down beneath someone's weight and then his head popped up through the hole again and he puffed smoke at me, I shooed it away. He crawled back up on the roof with me and then handed me something. I laughed.

It's a large checkered shirt with the sleeves cut (or rather torn) off.

"Put that on. _Please_." He muttered. I laughed again but slipped the shirt on and buttoned it up.

"Thank you." I said, taking another drag and blowing it out, lying back to look at the stars even though I knew I would doubtlessly get ash all over my face lying and smoking like this. He laid back and copied my posture.

"No problem." He replied gruffly.

"No, I mean…thank you. Really, thank you. For the shirt, for letting me finish off Mario…for saving my ass twice…no three times now? For Rebecca…For her grave…" I said softly and he looked at me.

"How'd you know it was me?"

I huffed out a little chuckle at him.

"Oh, please." I said. We laid there in silence for a few minutes until both of our cigarettes were gone and then I turned to look at him.

"You goin' to bed now?" I asked. He shook his head, remained staring up at the stars.

"Nah. Gotta take watch."

"They have you on watch tonight?" I asked, in disbelief. After all that craziness that went out yesterday and even today? That seemed insane. Why not have one of the girls or someone who hadn't done as much do it?

"Nah. Gotta watch you." He said quietly, and I was shocked.

"Me?" I asked. At first it seemed sweet but then the more I thought about it… "I don't need to be watched!"

"Not the way I see it. You said you were gonna sneak off and kill yourself. I ain't gonna let you."

I sighed. Why had I even said anything.

"But if I died, you guys could pick apart all the supplies in the ambulance. You know how many cigarettes are in here?"

He gave me an odd look.

"Now you tryna bribe me with cigarettes to let you die? Are all doctors this nuts?"

"Apparently…" I said softly and he watched me light another cigarette. I gave him another one as well even though he didn't ask for it.

"I'm sorry bout your friend." He said softly.

"I'm sorry about your brother. Although to be honest, he's gotta be alive if he managed to make it out of the city with that van."

He nodded. "Ain't nothin' ever gonna kill Merle, but Merle."

I sighed. I was kind of hoping he would give up the game soon and leave me alone. I wanted to die more than anything now and I had never had such an easy out. Press a button and you're done. That simple.

"I can tell what yer thinkin' about." He said suddenly, startling me. "And I ain't goin nowhere so you might as well forget it."

I gaped at him. "Seriously!? What is your problem!? You don't even know me! Why does it matter to you? One less person to feed around here! And a crapload more supplies!"

He shrugged a me, "It matters because you're alive and you're good. Don't wanna see you throw it away because you're sad."

"It's not as simple as being sad. I'm all alone now. I don't have a single other person in the world who gives a flying fuck about me, and I mean me-me. Not just oh I'm a doctor, I'm useful or I'm a good shot, I'm a good team member. I mean I don't have anyone else on this crumbling, decaying planet who cares about who I am. My soul. What makes me, me. No one. What's the point of living that way?" I said quietly.

He was looking at me intently and he dragged on his cigarette.

"Don't know what to tell ya. Never was real sentimental like, Just know there's more to livin' than other people likin' ya. It's about you living, it's your life. Not theirs."

I didn't know what to say to that so I didn't say anything. We laid there for a long time in silence, chain smoking. Every time I had one, I handed him one and sometime around 3 in the morning, I fell asleep. He was still wide awake.

**A/N: IS ANYONE ACTUALLY LIKING THIS? I'm beginning to consider discontinuing and deleting it! No one is reviewing and I really don't have a whole lot of views, I was rereading my other story Unwell and I liked that one so much better, I'm probably going to do a rewrite, fix the spelling mistakes, add things, make it more complete. If anyone really likes this story, please review or I probably will delete this :/**


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